Sam Lowes: Moto GP Spanish Grand Prix was the 'worst of my life'

The British MotoGP rookie remained near back of the field all weekend but felt he was making progress, although a fuel-pump problem limited his running to a single run in Q1, as he qualified 22nd of 23 riders.

Targeting his maiden MotoGP points, Lowes instead went on to finish 16th and more than a minute down on winner Dani Pedrosa while team-mate Aleix Espargaro finished ninth.

When asked to describe his race, Lowes said: "Shit.

"No, [it was the] worst race of my life. Disaster.

"It was embarrassing how far away we were from where we have been all weekend.

"So we need to try and understand some things.

"I couldn't ride the bike, I couldn't do anything I wanted to do with the bike so it was a disaster really."

Despite his frustration, Lowes said he hoped Monday's post-race test would offer some answers to his lack of pace, with conditions expected to be similar to those he experienced during the race.

"Tomorrow's test looks like it is going to be hot which is going to be good because that race then was, I really struggled for grip front and rear and we need to see why.

"[Today] was the first time in this heat, but yesterday in FP4 the track temperature was 44 degrees, only three degrees more.

"It shouldn't affect the bike that much and I don't know, the pace of everybody was quite slow comparative to the weekend so we need to understand why.

"My pace has been quite good and I just need to find the answers from the race and try and fix them tomorrow.

"I can take the positives I've had before today and then see what went wrong so we'll try and work tomorrow and find some more answers. We need to.

"After that performance there's no point testing new stuff until I get the most out of what we've got now."