Sam Lowes slams 'stupid' Zarco move

Sam Lowes was left furious after a clash with Moto2 title rival Johann Zarco ruined the Englishman's hopes of a home victory in Sunday's British Grand Prix.

Fastest in every track session prior to the Silverstone race, Lowes led the first seven laps before dropping to fourth. He then regained his pace and was just behind Zarco and race leader Thomas Luthi and Zarco with four laps to go.

But disaster struck shortly after Lowes overtook the Frenchman. Zarco tried to respond under braking for Brooklands, but the pair clashed at the apex. After the contact Zarco ran straight on, pushing Lowes from his Kalex in the process.

Zarco re-joined to cross the line in sixth but was later given a 30-second penalty by Race Direction, dropping him to 22nd place, one behind Lowes.

Zarco given 30-second penalty for Lowes incident. Frenchman is 22nd, one place behind Lowes #BritishGP #Moto2 pic.twitter.com/1mUF0pSXL1-- Crash.net MotoGP (@crash_motogp) September 4, 2016

"I had some problems early in the race, but then later it was easy for me to recover: in the final stages I was feeling really comfortable so, with three laps to go, I passed Zarco and I was already thinking about catching Luthi, because I felt to have something in the pocket," Lowes said.

"Then Zarco made a move on the inside, pushing me off track with a stupid manoeuvre. Zarco made something wrong, and I think he made it on purpose, so he deserved to be penalised, but at this point I don't care about it: apart from the Championship, today was a special day for me and I wanted to win, but for this it was not possible.

"I worked hard during all the weekend and I was fast on both dry and wet, then in the race I was in a good position to win. I really wanted to get the win in my home race, and it's a difficult to accept this situation, because I didn't make any mistake."

Zarco claimed that Lowes knew he was there and said that his front brake lever had been struck during their initial contact, preventing him from making the corner.

"I knew Sam was behind and he overtook me in corner 14. But because there were not many laps to the end I wanted to overtake straight back to keep contact with Luthi," he said.

"When I came in Sam saw me. He tried to resist. We touched one time, and when we touched my front brake move up. So it was difficult to brake and we touched a second time and he crashed in this time.

"So I was sorry for him. Then I tried to save as many points as possible. I really did not expect to get the penalty when I come into the pit box, but it's life.

"It's shame. It was the weekend to take big gap in points and the championship because Rins has a problem with collarbone and finally it's totally opposite. It's tough game and necessary to be really strong to finish the year."

Zarco is now just ten points ahead of the injured Alex Rins heading into next weekend's Misano round, with Lowes 44 points from the top.