Alex Lowes clearly enjoyed his first MotoGP™ weekend as he substituted for the injured Bradley Smith in the Monster Yamaha Tech3 team and achieved a point-scoring finish in front of the supportive British fans at Silverstone.
Lowes kicked off his day with a run to third in the mixed conditions in the morning warm up, which filled the 25-year-old with confidence ahead of the 20-lap sprint.
When the lights went out, the Briton charged forward, however, the race was stopped shortly afterwards due to an incident involving his teammate Pol Espargaro and Loris Baz.
At the restart, he leapt off the line as he completed the opening lap in 17th, and just two laps later, he moved up to 14th. Later on, he slipped back one position but remained fully focused as he looked to continue gathering as much experience as possible. Then with five laps left to run, he claimed 13th as he battled with Eugene Laverty in the final moments of the race.
Alex Lowes: “Overall I have to be pleased with how the weekend has ended and I really learnt a lot in my first MotoGP experience, which I thought was amazing. The ever changing weather conditions made things a bit trickier at this event, and this was even more of a challenge for me because any condition would have been tough as it was my debut on the YZR-M1.
“With regards to the race itself, it was the first time that I ran with a full fuel load and also the first time that I completed more than six laps in a row. Therefore, of course, the learning curve was steep and it was tough. In the first few laps, I locked the front whilst braking a few times which made me lose a bit of confidence, but after that, I tried to understand the changing behaviour of the bike regarding the fuel and tyre life. I also watched the guys around me and I learnt a lot. In the end, I finished 40 seconds back from the leader and 20 from Lorenzo in my first GP race, which is positive, but the main objective was to reach the flag and I also claimed a few points.”