Sam Lowes vows to ‘choose battles better’ in quest for 2021 Moto2 title
Sam Lowes says his sights are set firmly on securing the elusive Moto2 World Championship title in 2021 after taking the title fight right to the last round this year, as the Briton formally confirmed he will remain with Marc VDS Racing for a second year.
The 2013 WorldSSP champion was signed alongside then-defending champion Alex Marquez for 2020, but grasped the opportunity to become de facto team leader when the Spaniard was snapped up by Repsol Honda to compete in MotoGP.
In what was his sixth season at Moto2 level, Lowes overcame a slow start to the year to work himself into contention for the title on the back of three consecutive victories at Aragon and Le Mans, before a costly crash in Valencia left him with a broken hand that limited results in the final two rounds.
2020 MotoGP Winners & Losers (Part 1)
Ending up third in the standings behind Enea Bastianini and Luca Marini, with those Italians stepping up to MotoGP in 2021, Lowes - who remains with the Belgian outfit - will be the highest-place returnee for 2021 and will assume title favourite status alongside Marco Bezzecchi
“My goal for 2021 is to win the Moto2 World Championship,” he said in an Q&A posted to the Marc VDS website. “This year my goal was to be competitive again and to win races. I didn’t seriously consider fighting for the World Championship until I was fully immersed in the battle.
“Last winter I woke up ever day thinking about being fast again. In 2021, I will do it thinking about becoming World Champion. I think that is a realistic and feasible goal.
“I may not achieve it, but I think it is right for me to face the season with this mentality. It’s time to think about it, improve some things and fight for it.”
'Results encourage me to work harder in 2021'
Lowes’ return to prominence in 2020 comes after a difficult period in which many felt he didn’t show his full potential in Moto2 before a disastrous stint at Aprilia in MotoGP for 2018 was canned after just one season.
However, Lowes says the year has proven to him that he go all the way and become a grand prix world champion, even if he admits he needs to ‘pick his battles better’ referring to his fall in Valencia, which occurred in FP3.
“The performance and results of this season encourage me to want to work even harder and keep improving for the next one. I am very motivated and feel comfortable saying that next year I want to win the World Championship. If I said the same at this time last year, I am sure that 95% of the people would have said ‘of course, he wants to win it as all the riders want that’. But now I say it fully convinced that I can achieve it.
“[If I could change one thing about season] The fall in FP3 of the Valencia Grand Prix. I fell because I was pushing too much in a sector of the track where I was already very fast.
“What could have been a small fall ended up having important consequences for the end of the Championship because it meant I had to ride the last two races with the injured hand and another 10-points would have won me the title. I don’t know if the final result would have changed or not, but I think I can learn from what happened
“I have to choose my battles a little better. Like I said before FP3 in Valencia, I knew I had the pace, so maybe I could have been more relaxed in that situation”
