Briton’s Sam Lowes will start the seventeenth round of the Moto2 World Championship at Phillip Island from the back of the grid after an incident on the Gardner Straight in Free Practice two.
In the only dry session of the day, Lowes was on the cusp of making it into the important top 14 and was pushing on his final lap of the session.
Lowes came across Jesko Raffin‘s RW NTS Machine onto the start and finish straight, frustrated with the Swiss rider, Lowes barged into Raffin, the latter only just managing to stay onboard.
Lowes has been penalised for ‘Riding in an irresponsible manner’ for endangering both himself and Raffin after purposely causing contact.
This means that no matter where the Federal Oil Gresini rider will qualify, Lowes will line-up in 32nd position.
Sam Lowes ended his first day of on-track action in sixteenth, Jorge Martin ended the day on top.
Since returning to the Moto2 class, after his one-year stint in the MotoGP class, Lowes is yet to finish higher than fifth position.
For 2020, Lowes will join the EG 0,0 Marc VDS team, alongside 2019 Champion-elect, Alex Marquez.
The Moto2 qualifying session commences on Saturday with Qualifying 1 kicking off at 03:30 (GMT).
