Pata Yamaha’s Alex Lowes bagged a hard-fought fourth place ahead of team-mate Michael Van Der Mark in the second WorldSBK race at Aragon but the Derby man is more concerned about his gap to the leaders.
After struggling in race one, where crew chief Andrew Pitt admitted the bike Lowes was given ‘wasn’t good enough’, Lowes was right at the sharp end on Sunday but slowly slipped back as the pace wasn’t there. He finished ten seconds behind winner Chaz Davies.
“I struggled from the start and I was simply not fast enough. I said it yesterday, but today was the same, in as much as it was a case of just doing the best I can. I understood after two or three laps that I did not have the pace to fight for the victory so my target was to finish the rest of the race in the best position possible, make no mistakes, and ride as fast as I could till the end,” said Lowes.
“That is, obviously, what you should do in every race but normally you have a little bit in reserve for when you want to pass people. To be honest, I didn’t really worry about anyone else and just tried to do the best I could.
“I realised Michael was struggling with the front near the end of the race and I managed to get past him after a nice little battle but, like I said, it was too far from the lead. It is not too important to me to finish in front of him when we are ten seconds from the front. Hopefully, next week in Assen, Michael’s home race, we want to be battling like that for the win.”