BRAKING NEWS

WSB gets good, BMW take aim at Harley, Marc Marquez and more.

As Tom Sykes and Leon Haslam will tell you, being Jonathan Rea’s Kawasaki team-mate isn’t fun. But Alex Lowes didn’t get the memo – the new Kawasaki rider blitzed the ield, came away from Phillip Island leading the World Superbike championship and is a serious contender for the title. ‘I wouldn’t say I’m surprised I’m at the front,’ the 29-year-old tells Bike while hanging around in his hotel in Qatar, having just found the WSB race there has been cancelled because of coronavirus. ‘I suppose I was expecting to take longer to feel comfortable on the bike, after so long on the Yamaha. But if I didn’t think I could beat Jonny – or have a chance of beating him – I wouldn’t have signed for Kawasaki. I wanted a chance to see how good I am, or not. I wanted the challenge.’

Alex puts some of his success down to the Kawasaki: ‘The ZX-10R suits my style more than the Yamaha. I’m aggressive on the brakes and on the exits. On the Yamaha I had to ight that natural style and be smoother. On the Kawasaki, if you’re pushed off your line in a corner, you can stop it, turn it again, then accelerate out the corner without losing too much time. It makes it much easier when you’re battling.’

There was plenty of that at the irst round – Alex was pipped by 0.007sec in race one, and won race two by 0.037sec. It was the most frenzied – and entertaining – WSB round for years. ‘I managed to stay calm in the battles, which helped,’ he says. ‘I’ve been working hard with a sports psychologist over the winter to make sure my mind is in a good place for the new challenge. When you’re in the kind of battles we had, it really helps to stay calm because it gives you more time to be aware of what’s going on around you.’

It’ll be interesting to see how calm Jonathan Rea is at the next round at Jerez on 27-29 March.