Pata Yamaha’s Alex Lowes has expressed his delight with his YZF-R1 after a strong opening day at MotorLand Aragon ahead of the third round of the 2017 season.
The British rider was resolute in his aims for this weekend, stating that he thinks nothing less than a challenge for the top three in both races would do.
Indeed, Lowes set himself off in the right direction to doing so this morning, shooting up the order in the closing stages to second and getting to within a tenth of Kawasaki’s Jonathan Rea on a 1m50.641s.
“Honestly, I’m quite happy with the bike today,” he said.
“I enjoyed riding these sessions; I enjoyed the bike on the track apart from the end of the second session that was a bit dodgy with the weather. I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”
Lowes’ good form carried over into the afternoon session, where he sat third on the combined times for much of. However, by the time the chequered flag fell he had slipped to fifth and had failed to improve on his FP1 best.
But this is of little concern to the Yamaha rider, as he feels he simply went the wrong way with set-up and will revert back to the settings he used in FP1 in tomorrow’s third practice.
Though almost feeling perfect with his R1, Lowes admits that his riding position needs some tinkering with. He’ll use FP3 to try something to sort this and hopefully confirm his findings in Superpole.
“In the afternoon session we went backwards a little bit and the setting didn’t feel so goo, but that’s no problem as we know we can go the other way for tomorrow in the next practice,” the Yamaha rider explained.
“I think I can do a good a qualifying and a good race. I’m really loving my R1 now, so let’s see what happens.
“I need to improve my position on the bike a little, so we’ll work on that in the morning practice and confirm it in Superpole to be ready for the race.”
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