Alex Lowes revealed that he and Bimota focused on a wide range of parts ahead of the 2026 WorldSBK season.
Bimota’s return to the WorldSBK paddock has been a success in its first season back, with Lowes finishing sixth in the championship and notching four podiums.
Aside from two races in the Superpole race at Balaton Park and Estoril, Lowes finished sixth or better across the second half of the season.
The Lincolnshire-born rider ended the second day of the November Jerez test fastest, posting a 1.37.825s, but with Ducati absent, it’s uncertain how meaningful the new parts evaluation truly is.
“It’s always pretty difficult to test here [at Jerez] in the winter because the track is quite grippy, the temperature is cool,” Lowes told WorldSBK.com.
“You have to be really precise in what you’re testing because everything feels quite good.
“My best lap was with a qualifying tyre, I did one lap with a qualifying tyre in the middle of the day.
“[We] Changed the chassis of the bike, setup-wise, quite a lot: we’ve got a different swingarm to what we used during the season; different parts from Showa; different balance of the bike.
“So, we tried just to see how it affected the balance of the bike – it was quite good.
“Then we started to work on a few other things: some electronics work, corner entry stuff, but it’s difficult to really know, especially with Ducati not here, not everybody here, conditions are cool, track is grippy – so it’s hard to know.
“But I do believe we’ve made a couple of steps since the last race of the year. We’ll find out, obviously, as we get going on different tracks, but I think we’ve definitely improved our package since the last round of 2025, and that’s all we can do; so, happy with the work done.”
Alex Lowes: 2026 Bimota ‘an evolution’ from 2025 findings
Lowes said the new parts were concepts the team had looked at earlier, but finally decided to concentrate on during the two-day test.
But as Bimota heads into its second year following its return, a clearer picture of how competitive these parts are will be shown on other tracks.
“It’s an evolution, really, of what we’ve learnt during this year – where we’ve gone with the chassis, the base setting,” he said.
“Obviously, on a race weekend you’ve got Friday practice and then you’re racing on Saturday, you don’t really want to go too extreme.
“So, we had some ideas that we already tried in the test after the race with the balance of the bike – quite extreme.
“The chassis on the bike was working well, so it’s hard to improve it, but we’ve made quite a big change, and on this track in these conditions I feel a lot more comfortable.
“Now, like I said, we have to be careful not to not get too excited, we have to try at different tracks, different temperatures and everything else. But with the track time I’ve had, I felt good and confident – the best I’ve felt on the bike.”
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