Alex Lowes retired from the World Superbike Championship’s Superpole race at Jerez following a bizarre and dangerous accident. Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha) overtook him on the way to turn one, but positioned himself right in front of Lowes’ bike, and the British rider couldn’t avoid to hit the rear wheel with his helmet. He suffered some abrasions on his face as a result.
The Kawasaki rider stated, as quoted on SPEEDWEEK.com, that he doesn’t think it was a clean maneuver: ‘Toprak passed me in the first corner and I felt it wasn’t a clean manoeuvre. It doesn’t look like it from the outside, but the way he got in front of me and delayed, he didn’t give me any room’.
While acknowledging his luck in avoiding more serious injuries, Lowes also refrained from making extensive criticisms of Razgatlioglu: ‘I don’t want to complain about the action because I like the way he rides […]. Still, it’s a shame about the crash and I was lucky to get away with it. The impact was violent. Now I have a few stitches around my eyes and quite a lot of swelling on my face’.