Top Ten Early Pace For Lowes At Portimao

The bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team took to the track once again at Portimao on Friday 28 March for two Free Practice sessions at the second round of the 2025 FIM Superbike World Championship. Alex Lowes was to be the top KB998 Rimini rider of the day, in an overall tenth place.

Alex and his team-mate Axel Bassani found warm and dry track conditions waiting for them when they took their first competitive steps at the 4.592km long Autodromo Internacional do Algarve.

Lowes was to set the fastest time for the new bimota KB998 Rimini machine, a pace which put him tenth on the overall rankings after one day on track in Portugal.

Bassani, who had been third fastest in morning’s FP1 session, relied on his FP1 time to go 12th quickest overall on his bimota KB998 Rimini machine; the customer version of which will be available from April 9 in European bimota dealers.

With the opening day’s action now complete the WorldSBK riders will face a third free practice session in Saturday 29 March, quickly followed by Superpole Qualifying and then the first 20-lap race of the Portimao weekend.

Alex Lowes, stated: “Today was a good day. We tried a long run in FP2 and we finally got some nice weather. The recent test here had a lot of rain and cold at times. Today we got to try the bike in hotter conditions. I felt quite good, honestly. I enjoyed riding the bike and got it where I wanted it. I struggled a little bit with the front tyre moving in the last five or six laps, so we know that is an area where we can improve for Saturday. The one lap pace was a bit slower than I wanted it to be, so we also need to improve that for tomorrow. There are a couple of points on the track where I wasn’t doing really well; T3 then T11-T13. I think I can improve myself there. I enjoyed riding in the sunshine at Portimao and the bimota KB998 was going well. So let’s try and make some steps forward on Saturday - because it’s race time.”

Axel Bassani, stated: “We had a good day and we improved a little bit in FP1to finish third at that point. But I think that is because I put a new tyre in at the end of the session. In FP2 we tried to do some more laps on a used tyre. The pace was not bad, quite similar to some of my rivals. We also tried something new on the rear, but I didn’t like it. Now I need to understand what to do for tomorrow to improve and find some tenths. For sure the battle for the top five at the moment is - not impossible, because nothing is impossible - but it is really difficult. We will try to do our best and I hope to have a good Race One on Saturday.”