Alex Lowes takes first WorldSBK podium of 2021 with second at Aragon

Alex Lowes clinches first podium of the 2021 WorldS🎃BK campaign after an i💖ntense battle with Toprak Razgatlioglu.
Lowes made a great start from the front of the second row to slot in ✨just behind team-mate Jonathan Rea.
The two Kawasaki riders instantly started to gap the group behind and looked on course for a comfortable one-꧂two.
However, Lowes encountered some issues at the halfway stage of the race and🙈 fell into the gr🌺asp of Razgatlioglu and Chaz Davies.
Once t🐽he Yamaha rider got ahe🧔ad, Lowes was able to stabilise himself and then mount a challenge late on.
A charge that saw him ꩲpip Razgatlioglu over the start finish line. Lowes said: "Before the race I didn’t know what to expect. We’ve obviously tested a lot here but the conditions have changed. So you don’t really know and there’s🧔 always that excitement of the first race.
"I felt quite good at the start, I got a good start, stayed with Jonathan [Rea], but after a few laps I encountered some big problems on th🦋e front. I had two or three big slides.
"I just thought to myself ‘it’s the first 🎃race of the year’, and I saw I had a bit of a gap. I knew they were gonna catch me because I decided just to be smooth in the middle (of the race),𒊎 and I was thinking when somebody passes me ‘just try to stay with them’ and use them to fight until the end of the race."
On🍃 various occasions Lowes used the better rear grip of his Kawasaki to challenge Razgattlioglu, but the 24 year-old’s immense braking was making i👍t extremely difficult.
"Then when I saw it was Toprak [Razgatlioglu], I thought ‘oh great!’, because I know what he’s lik🐟e on the brakes, but we had a really g😼ood battle,” added the former BSB champion.
"Some parts he was faster and some parts I was faster. I could see in the last three laps he was spinning a lot so I didn't want t🎐o pass him before the last corner, as he was turning better and was going to switch me.
"I decided ജto wait on the outside, be a little bit patient and then get a bit of a run onto the straight."