Alex Lowes entered♛ WorldSBK Race 2 at Magny-Cours with a seemingly clear shot at winning the race, but an issue on the first lap meant he was out of contention almost im♈mediately.

Lowes ran wide at turn eight on the🍸 first lap, seemingly with gear selection issues. He dropped to 19th, and recovered to fourth.

“I had some issue with the bike, I felt like it was a major issue, so I pulled the clutch and went off the racing line,” Lowe🐼s told Eurosport after ꦐthe race. “Then I played with some buttons, tried to keep going.”

Lowes said that it’s not clear what the issไue was, although ꧂a clutch problem is a possibility.

“We don’t know, but it cou𝐆🎐ld’ve been with the clutch — the clutch gets hot off the start and doing my shifts on the first lap,” he explained.

Overall, Lowes’ Sunday was posi🌺tive, with his 19th-to-fourth run in Race 2 coming after a second place in the Superpole Race, in which he fought for victory throughouಌt with Nicolo Bulega.

“To be disappointed with second and fourth after yesterday’s race means we’re do🎶ing well,” Lowes said. “Obviously, there🐲’s a few guys out of the race, I wish them all the best.

“The bike was working well. If I take out all the expectation of a race like that — yﷺou’re passing a lot of guys, you’re feeling good on the bike, the race goes from being a long race to being a really fast race — the bike was great, but I feel like we missed the opportunity to maybe fight with [Nicolo] Bulega (who won Race 2 by over two seconds)🦋.

“I didn’t check the lap times but I felt quite strong. [I’ll] take the positives and ꦬmove on to Cremona. I enjoyed it, just disappointed with fourth in that one.”

Lowes was not certain that without the lap one problem he would have won, but suggested that he felt he could 🎶be in the battle for the win without it.

“To win a race is difficult,” he said. “But I would’ve been in the mix. [...] Disappointed, because it’s a missed opportunity; I’ve been doing th🍸e game a long time and I’ve not had too many opportunities to win races in Wo♌rldSBK.”