Onchan resident Sam Lowes got off to the perfect start in the Moto2 world championship in the Barwa Grand Prix of Qatar at the Losail Circuit over the weekend.

Having looked very strong in pre-season testing, he continued that form when qualifying fastest on Saturday aboard his ELF Marc VDS Kalex.

Sunday morning was very windy and Lowes crashed out of the warm-up session, but this would fortunately have no ill-effect on his race.

Lowes initially dropped to third at the start of the race, but he was quickly up to second. He then set about catching Marco Bezzecchi (Sky Racing VR46), successfully taking the lead on lap three.

Once in front he quickly pulled out a half-second advantage on the pack. A brief moment off-camera saw that lead disappear, but Lowes again put his head down to re-establish an advantage of 1.491 seconds after 10 laps, half-distance.

From there on it was a case of hitting every apex and not going off line as the wind had made the track very slippery with sand blowing across the surface.

The Englishman was inch-perfect, with 12 of the 20 lap times in the 1m 59s zone. Controlling the latter half of race, he crossed the finish line 2.26sec ahead of Remy Gardiner (Red Bull KTM AKO), with Fabio Di Giannantonio (Gresini) third.

There were emotional scenes in the winner’s enclosure as Di Annantonio and Lowes congratulated each other. Lowes had raced for the Italian Gresini team in 2019 and his former boss, Fausto Gresini, lost his battle with Covid-19 shortly before testing started late last month.

Gresini was a double world champion in the late 1980s.

After the race, Sam said: ’To get pole position and win at the first round starts things off in a good way. My team has done a fantastic job. Winning the first race is a mega start to the season.’

He is the first British rider to win an opening round at a motorcycle Grands Prix event since Barry Sheene in 1979.

Lowes now has it all to do again under the night sky of Doha next Sunday in round two.