main content of page
Racing News |
Lowes Takes Fifth Place In Final Cremona Race
After two races at Cremona on Sunday, Alex Lowes (BbKRT) scored the best individual result of the weekend with a fifth place in Race 2. Axel Bassani ended the final Italian-based race of 2026 in ninth position, for his second points score of the weekend.
In the 10-lap Superpole ‘sprint’ Race, on Sunday morning, Lowes was the top bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team finisher, in sixth place, after using a revised base set-up on his bimota KB998 Rimini on Sunday. Axel was run off track by another rider on the second lap of the sprint race, and although he got back on track, in such a short race he was not able to make up any track positions and finished 16th.
The last of three races for the BbKRT riders, Race 2, was held over 23 laps in the middle of the afternoon, and took place in warm and pleasant conditions.
Using his Superpole Race settings once more, Lowes was in the just-off-podium mix through Race 2 and was riding in fifth place for the vast majority of the 23 laps. He would finish there and score 11 championship points as a result.
Bassani’s fortunes were much improved for Race 2, and at the end he was able to fight for a time until he lost a little traction at the front and rear, finishing ninth. He secured more points for a weekend of hard work at bimota’s home round.
In the championship points table, Lowes leaves the 10th of 12 rounds in fourth position, with a total of 226 points. Bassani is seventh overall, with 184 points. He is just nine points away from a sixth-place ranking, with six individual WorldSBK races still to go.
Back-to-back WorldSBK rounds complete the 2026 WorldSBK Championship campaign, with Estoril hosting the penultimate race weekend from October 9-11 and Jerez being the venue for the series finale, from October 16-18.
“It was a better Sunday for us. We made a bigger change than we normally would in a race weekend between Race 1 and the warm-up session today. It felt really good in the cooler conditions of the Superpole Race, so we stuck with it for Race 2 in the afternoon. It felt really good again, but there were a couple of points on the front where I was a little bit nervous, and the bike was sliding a bit. Apart from that, I think we were faster, and I was a lot closer to the Independent Ducatis, which was our target. I was also a little bit closer to the front of the race compared to yesterday. We have to be really happy because we made some good progress, made no mistakes, and enjoyed the final Cremona race. It was not an easy track here, but there were lots of fans, and it was a great weekend. We did our best, and we will keep pushing to get a bit better.”
Axel Bassani, stated: “It was quite a difficult round, and in the Superpole race in the morning, we arrived last, which was the first time for me. A new experience. This afternoon, we started the race, and my feeling was really good in the first laps. I tried to battle a little bit with Garrett Gerloff, but in the last six laps, I started to struggle a lot with the front and also the rear. So, I had to slow down a little bit. We lost some time and finished P9, but we took some more points for the championship, which is good. Now we have one week to relax, and then we will go fully focused on the last two rounds of the championship. We can fight for P6 in the rankings, and we are very near, so we will try our maximum.”
