Voltcom Crescent Suzuki's Alex Lowes topped the times at the conclusion of the opening day of testing on Monday the 16th of February at Phillip Island in the lead up to this weekends opening round of the 2015 World Superbike Championship at the same venue.
A steady start to Monday‰Ûªs proceedings saw Lowes conclude the morning session in ninth place before working through a number of test settings as the afternoon progressed. As track temperatures rose from 29 to 37å¡C between sessions, the British racer put his Yoshimura-powered GSX-R safely into the 1.31 bracket before a 1‰Ûª31.332 with just minutes to go, claiming the day‰Ûªs top spot by over 0.3 of a second.
‰ÛÏIt‰Ûªs been a difficult day and I‰Ûªm quite surprised to be fastest." Lowes admitted. "We‰Ûªve had some issues to work through but the guys have worked really hard and done a fantastic job.
"We‰Ûªre approaching this year differently to last, as I almost ruined my season before the first race last year by crashing, but this year I‰Ûªm determined not to do the same again ‰ÛÒ obviously mistakes can happen but we‰Ûªre working well. We‰Ûªve got some good information and feedback from today and I didn‰Ûªt get frustrated when we had problems early on; I kept calm and went quite fast at the end.
"We‰Ûªve got a lot of work still to do ‰ÛÒ someone asked my expectations for Sunday, but I‰Ûªm just looking forward to tomorrow morning, doing my best and then we‰Ûªll see what happens for the race weekend.
"Big credit to the guys and I really hope Randy is ok. Lez (my crew chief from last year) really helped this afternoon when we had some problems and that just shows the team we have this year. We might be one of the smaller factory set-ups but we are very strong and I think we are going to do a good job.‰Û
