Sam Lowes on 2024 WorldSBK struggles: ”The package was never in doubt, it was me”

Sam Lowes’ maiden WorldSBK campaign in 2024 was blighted by a struggle to understand the Ducati Panigale V4 R, something which has seemingly improved in 2025 already, judging Lowes’ results at the opening round of the season in Australia.

Lowes was clear that the issues he faced in 2025 came more from the human side than the bike, which is proven in World Superbike with two riders’ titles from Alvaro Bautista in 2022 and 2023.

“Obviously the package was never in doubt with the Ducati, but it was me,” Lowes told WorldSBK.com after the opening round of 2025 in Australia.

“I couldn’t understand very well the bike, my feeling on the bike was a little bit strange.”

These are things that have changed “quite a lot” for Lowes in the 2025 season so far, he said, despite the technical base remaining the same as last year.

“[This] has changed quite a lot [in 2025],” he said. “Considering it’s exactly the same bike, in theory, we changed quite a lot of things.

“Now I feel more normal and able to match my comments with the data and progress in a normal way. This is positive. The results show that.”

Lowes explained that the first race of the year at Phillip Island had been a week of progression, from the test on Monday and Tuesday through to Sunday.

“I took confidence from Monday, Tuesday, Friday another step, this morning in Warm Up another step,” he said, “so over the weekend we’ve been building so that was nice for me to see.”

Expanding more on his two Sunday races in Australia, in which he took two top-six finishes, Lowes said: “It was a nice Sunday. I did a nice ride in the Superpole Race because the first laps I was back in 11th, 12th position and in a 10-lap race when you’ve made many positions it goes really fast and it’s enjoyable.

“In the last race, honestly, I expected to be a bit closer because my pace was good [in the Superpole Race], but we lost a bit of time [before the pit stop] with me, [Danilo] Petrucci, Toprak [Razgatlioglu] fighting a little bit.

“Then, after the [pit stop] me and Petrucci had a great battle; I was trying to get away from him but he just got me back at the end, so I [had to] settle for sixth.

“It’s nice for me to be starting the year like this; I finished last year so bad, my confidence was down, my shoulder was bad, and everything was difficult, so to come here at the first race, enjoy a lot, ride well, no mistakes, three finishes, two top-sixes [on Sunday] is really nice, something to build on.

“Phillip Island is always a unique track, obviously Ducati was so strong this weekend, the conditions and everything suited the bike, so that obviously helped, but last year also [conditions] many times suited it and I didn’t perform.2

Looking ahead to the second round at Portimao, Lowes was happy to be testing there beforehand, having had limited running in the winter due to bad weather.

“I think it’s good to have a test in Portimao before the race because everybody did no laps, more or less, in the winter,” he said.

“It was quite a difficult winter for everybody, so it will be nice to get there and do some longer runs because here has just been five sprint races, in theory.”