Sam Lowes arrived at Losail in Qatar with the prospect of not racing, having missed most of pre-season testing with tendonitis in his left wrist.

This was brought on by a fall at Jerez and made worse by another crash at Portimao, so he decided that it was in his best interests to rest before the first round of the 2022 Moto2 World Championship.

In free practice he rode through the pain barrier to put himself inside the top-10 and straight into Q2, finishing the session on pole after a stunning lap early in the session. Unfortunately he was later demoted to third because an earlier time had been pulled for exceeding track limits.

As the lights went out at the start of the race Lowes made a fair start on the Elf Marc VDS Kalex but was made to sit his bike up after contact with Filip Salac (Gressini Racing) at turn one. He soon found himself in eighth spot by the end of the lap, so it was now a matter of digging in and climbing as many places as possible in the 19 laps remaining.

With 11 laps to go Lowes had made it up to fifth place but was stuck behind AI Ogura (Idemitsu Honda Team Asia) and Augusto Fernandez (Red Bull KTM Ajo). With time running out it looked like the Onchan resident would have to settle for fifth place.

A few laps later Ogura and Fernandez had swapped places and, on the final corner of the race, Ogura went for the pass on Fernandez, lost the front of his machine and slid into Fernandez pushing him off line. In the blink of an eye Lowes was through to third place.

The race was won convincingly by Celestino Vietti (Mooney VR46 Racing) from Aron Canet (Flexbox HP40) in second and the injured Lowes in third.

In the winners’ enclosure Lowes admitted the leading two riders in front were stronger: ‘The first few laps I was really, really bad, I was struggling to be strong on the bike, I can’t be aggressive so I struggled to overtake.

‘After the last three weeks I’ve had, I’ll accept that little bit of luck because I’ve dug in and you know I could cry how fortunate I am to be here, because last week I didn’t even know if I could ride and here we are on the podium.’

Lowes heads off to the Pertamina Grand Prix of Indonesia on March 20 for round two.of the championship.