Moto2: Lowes: Front two rows would be mega

Britain's Sam Lowes is confident of his race pace for Sunday's Moto2 race at Jerez but believes he may struggle in to qualify well in the hotter afternoon conditions.

Lowes finished the first day of practice second overall courtesy of his time in the cooler FP1 while he could do no better than seventh in FP2. It confirmed to the 24-year old that the afternoon qualifying may be somewhat of a struggle.

"The front two rows would be mega," he told Crash.net on Friday. "The first three rows in the worst case. In the morning I think we can be fast but that's when it's cooler.

When the track gets hot we struggle a little bit more. It's the first time we've had a high track temperature with this swing arm so it's something new. We've had to try many things. We used the old tyre from this morning and in the end it wasn't too bad. If we put in a new tyre in we would have been closer to the top. We need to improve a little bit with the grip. We're struggling with the drive grip."

Tito Rabat began to show some of the form that took him to the world championship in 2014 on Friday and Lowes believes he will be difficult to beat on Sunday.

"He won his first race here [in 2013]. He won by five or six seconds so he's really good around here. When the conditions are not fantastic then Rabat is really good. He rides so much. When the bike isn't perfect he finds something different. So we need to try and catch up with him.

He's got number one on his bike and he hasn't been on the podium this year. He needs to do it. He's in the best team on the best bike so he needs to do it. The normal guys will be there and in the next few races it will be tighter than the start of the year."

Speaking of the injuries sustained at Austin, Lowes said that he currently feels ok but his late race pace may suffer somewhat.

"I feel ok now. On the bike I feel quite normal. I've still got some pain in my back and my shoulder so to be honest at the end of the race there might be some small problem but I'll just get my head down and not talk about it."