Lowes finds easy time in new swinging arm

Sam Lowes has been left delighted with his progress on the Federal Oil Gresini Oil Kalex Moto2 bike after the second night of testing at Qatar, making a major breakthrough on bike set-up with a new swinging arm – much to his own surprise!

“We changed something that should have taken laps and laps to understand – we put in the softer swing arm that everyone else runs, and after a few laps to understand it I did a 1:59.9 lap on lap 16 of the tyre! 

“Then, for the last run, I put in a new front but kept the old back tyre, so I pushed but not all the way – and still did three 1:59 laps in a row! The first time we’ve put it in, it’s just went boom- fast! Kalex can’t believe it!”

Totally confident now in his ability to produce race-winning consistency in next week’s opening round at the Qatari track, Lowes was also keen to stress that while they’ve done important work for the first round, the test’s lessons should stand them in good steed all season long.

“We’ve done so much testing that we’ll be good all year. Working with the other swinging arm here means we know that when we’ve got loads of grip I prefer the harder one and a softer tyre, because you can force it into the track – you just can’t do that here because there’s no grip – but there’s a bit more give with the softer swinging arm, because before we were forcing the tyre and the tyre was saying ‘fuck off!’”