Sam Lowes (ELF Marc VDS Racing Team) enjoyed a very strong weekend in Australia, not only improving on his Phillip Island benchmarks from last season, but the British rider even achieved his best-ever result in the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship. 2025 is only his second year in WorldSBK, and while last year’s 18^th place finish was hampered by frequent crashes and a nagging shoulder injury which troubled him throughout the season, he showed flashes of greatness, like in his fastest lap registered in Race 1 in Barcelona.

Sunday’s Tissot Superpole Race proved the highlight of the #14’s weekend. His previous best result was last year at Assen, earning a P6 finish in Race 2, but he bettered that by one place in Australia. He will fly back to Europe in a cool P7 in the Riders’ Championship. Prior to this weekend, Lowes had struggled in his recent Superpole Races, in his last four he had achieved an average position of 16^th, however thanks to his ELF Marc VDS Racing Team’s work over the offseason, and much-needed time to get back to being physically 100%, Lowes is off to a ripping start in 2025.

On his feeling with the bike so far in 2025, Lowes said, “It was a lot better! it was a nice Sunday, I did nice riding in the Superpole Race because the first laps I was back in 11^th or 12^th position and in a 10-lap race when you make many positions it goes really fast and it’s enjoyable. Then in the last race, I expected it to be a little closer because my pace was good this morning, we lost a little bit of time because of me, Petrucci and Toprak battling a little bit. After the restart, Petrucci and I had a great battle, I was trying to get away from him, but he got me back in the end, so I have to settle for P6. It was nice to start the year like this, I finished last year so bad, my confidence was down, my shoulder was bad, everything was difficult. To come here in the first race, enjoy a lot, ride around with no mistakes, three finishes and two top sixes, it’s really nice and something to build on. Phillip island is a unique track, obviously Ducati was strong this weekend, with the conditions and everything suiting the bike, so that obviously helped, but last year there were many times that conditions suited the bike, and I didn’t perform, so it’s a positive start and let’s keep going!”

This breakout start to the season for Lowes has surely put wind in the sails of he and his Marc VDS Ducati squad. While he’s yet to stand on the rostrum or enjoy the success he had in Moto2™ with the same team, the Lincoln-born rider will be hoping the Australian Round is the start of a more successful – in terms of best finishes and potentially podiums – second year in WorldSBK.

“The package is never in doubt with the Ducati, it was me,” said Lowes. “I couldn’t understand the bike very well, my feeling on the bike was very strange, we changed quite a lot of things considering it’s the exact same bike in theory. We changed quite a lot and now I feel more normal and able to match my comments with the data to progress in a ‘normal’ way. I took a step during the test and I took another step, on Friday, another step, in Warm Up another step, over the weekend it was nice to see that progress. Now it’ll be good to have a test in Portimao before the race because no one did any laps really, it was quite a difficult winter for everybody so it will be nice to get there, do some runs and keep building.”

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