Lowes speaks out
Moto2 star reveals why his 2018 season sucked
It’s fair to say that Moto2 rider Sam Lowes’ 2018 season was an unmitigated disaster. Hoping to come back strong to the middleweight series after a disappointing year on the factory Aprilia in MotoGP, the Brit suffered the worst season of his Grand Prix career. Not only did he fail to return to championship challenging pace, he didn’t even come close to the podium and ended the year 16th in the title race with just one top six finish.
But while many have suggested that the 28-year-old might have lost it following a difficult and crash-strewn season in MotoGP, there were lots of things going wrong behind the scenes that led to poor results last year. Lowes was riding for Swiss Innovative Investors KTM in 2018; a team who twice took Thomas Luthi to runner-up in the championship, but financial problems from day one meant Lowes was on a road to nowhere from the moment he first sat on the bike. And while they got off to an OK start in Qatar, USA and Argentina, Lowes says it didn’t take long for the cracks to appear once the pace heated up. “Once we got back to Europe, the plan was that there would be some upgrades coming, but they never came and I started to hear some worrying rumours. Obviously at this point it was just rumours and everything seemed fine. Then we went to Aragon to test and had a good session with a new chassis and new forks, and I did my best lap times using some of the new stuff. It was already on the same level as the old stuff after 20 laps, and it was obviously the way the development was going, but I didn’t know then that we’d not be allowed to go in that direction.
“From then on, we were always on different bikes, older stuff at the end of its life, and KTM didn’t really care much about our input because we weren’t on the same bike as the factory team. The team argued that it was only a small difference, but it all has an impact on performance. “Then we had a bit of a misunderstanding in the middle of the year, when we were arguing about money and the way the team was going. The team co-ordinator asked ‘since when did money help team performance?’ I felt like turning around and telling him that it matters every f***ing time.” And while Lowes admits that he made mistakes that didn’t help the situation as the year progressed, there are reasons why his eye might not always have been on the prize. He’d not been paid all season and was locked in legal action with the squad over wages. Unsurprisingly, it started to play on Lowes’ mind. “From then on, knowing that I was on old stuff and that spares weren’t coming, that I hadn’t been paid, that my mechanics were starting to miss getting paid, too, made it really hard. Maybe I got too involved in knowing that things weren’t good and that my guys weren’t being paid, but every time you get on the bike and it looks like it’s just been crashed even before you go out of the garage you start to question everything.
“There were many things that affected me and, of course, financially not being paid anything at all affected me. It was a big year for me off the track with the birth of my daughter and I am not scared to say that when all that’s going on and I wasn’t getting paid, it affected me; I’m only human. I’m a nice guy and an honest guy, I treated everyone in the team well, but they didn’t respect me at all. They abused my good nature and that hurts.
“I had got to the stage where I was questioning myself and asking myself if I was overthinking it all. The team were telling me it was only little things, and I started to think ‘maybe it is me’. Then I jumped on the Gresini bike I’ll ride in 2019 at the end of the season and realised I was 110% right all along.”
Friends reunited
Back with the Gresini squad with whom he enjoyed his best years in 2015 and 2016, it’s looking entirely possible that Lowes will return to title contention when the flag drops in Qatar. Hedging his bets for now despite being consistently in the top three at the first test of Triumph’s new engines, he says that the atmosphere inside the team alone is enough to keep him confident. “I turned up at Jerez for the test a bit early and after being there for a day-and-a-half without even being on track I could have gone home happy for the winter.
“The way that the people are in the team and the way they work is absolutely top level and professional. I’m proud to be joining Gresini again and from the bottom of my heart I know what I can do. “There are no excuses now. I have a great team, full support off Kalex and Öhlins and it’s down to me. It’s an important year for my career and I will be giving it everything.”
‘It was hard knowing I was on old stuff’