WorldSBK rider warns “it’s a shame when one manufacturer is dominating”

Alex Lowes has labelled Ducati’s current domination of WorldSBK “a shame” after the Italian brand secured three podium lockouts at the recent Dutch Round.

Ducati has won all nine World Superbike races in 2026, all with Nicolo Bulega. It’s also scored 1-2s in the last six races with Iker Lecuona finishing behind his teammate in all three races at both Portimao and Assen.

At the latter, Sam Lowes was third in all three races and Alvaro Bautista was fourth in all three races. In Race 2, Yari Montella locked out the top-five for Ducati and Lorenzo Baldassarri made it an all-Ducati top-six.

Ducati also has a lockout of the top-three in the riders’ standings thanks to Sam Lowes’ Assen results, and has locked out the front row at all three rounds

BMW’s Miguel Oliveira is the first non-Ducati rider in the standings, largely thanks to his three third places at Portimao, but is now 117 points behind Bulega after only nine races.

In the manufacturers’ standings, Ducati is 93 points clear of second-placed Bimota, which itself has scored 93 points, meaning Ducati has scored double the points of its closest rival. 

The factory Bimota team is also second in the teams’ standings, but 167 points behind the factory Ducati squad.

All this, of course, is coming in the first year of Ducati’s newly updated Panigale V4 R.

In the opinion of Bimota’s Alex Lowes, who sits fifth in the championship on equal points with Oliveira, Ducati’s domination is “a shame”.

“I don’t even want to go on about it, really,” Lowes told WorldSBK.com after Race 2 at Assen when asked about the performance of Ducati.

“But it is a shame when one manufacturer is dominating the results. 

“But you can’t take it away from them or the riders on the bike, they’re doing a good job.

“We’ve just got to try to improve, try to get a bit better, try to maximise ourselves and see if we can get a bit closer to being in the mix. 

“Certainly, when I had grip this weekend I felt like I could fight a little bit with them, that was enjoyable; but not much fun in the last race. 

“I need to try and improve, the guys need to try and improve and we’ll try and do better in Balaton.”

Lowes’ Race 2 saw him start in fourth but drop to 11th by the end as he struggled with rear instability.

“Race [2] started like the other two races: good start, good first laps,” he said.

“Then I encountered a problem, I was really struggling with the rear of the bike to lean the bike, I had some really big slides which really affected my pace and eventually just dropped down. 

“I don’t really know why, we need to analyse a bit more what happened. 

“A shame to end the weekend with a difficult race because even the start of that race we were doing well, the only person that’s really in the mix with the Ducatis, and it’s just a shame that we’ve had this issue. 

“But I can’t be disappointed with the weekend, I’ve gave it everything every lap, we’ve been fast. Just need to try and do a bit better in the next one.”