Eugene Laverty boosted by 'best run yet' on factory BMW at Catalunya World Superbike test

The Northern Ireland rider, who joined the Shaun Muir-managed team alongside Tom Sykes for 2020, finished sixth fastest in the test, one second behind pacesetter and world champion Jonathan Rea.

Laverty is fighting to retain his ride with BMW in 2021 after Muir signed Dutchman Michael van der Mark for next season, leaving one seat up for grabs.

The 34-year-old says he will be going all-out for the best results possible when the championship returns for round two at Jerez in Spain (July 31-August 2) after a break of almost five months due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“This test has been my best run on the bike yet, it’s been fantastic and in particular my race run in that final session there,” he said.

“I did a race run yesterday which was a good pace, but I knew I had more to give today (Thursday) and I proved that. We lapped from the start in the 1’43.300’s and by lap 18 we were at 1’43.900, which was incredible compared to what a lot of the others lads were doing over the race distance.

“This morning I had some good pace on the ‘X’ tyre and then jumped to the ‘Q’ tyre but had a little crash. The crash was a similar crash to the one in Phillip Island which is something we need to look at.

“Overall I’m happy with the test and I’m looking forward to getting out in Jerez in a few weeks’ time.”

Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona has long been a feature of the MotoGP calendar, but will host a round of the World Superbike Championship for the first time from September 18-20.

Reigning champion Rea, who is currently fourth in the standings after the first round at Phillip Island in Australia back in March – 19 points behind his KRT team-mate Alex Lowes – put down a marker as he topped the timesheets on his ZX-10RR from Ducati’s Scott Redding.

The 31-year-old, who is bidding to win the world crown for an astonishing sixth season in a row, said: “This morning (Thursday) I used a race tyre, the soft tyre and then two qualifying tyres. That was the target this morning – to work on ultimate pace and see what we could do.

“After that we started to work with the set-up again and tried to confirm some items on the front to give me some more stability. We ‘backed-to-backed’ both bikes to find if we confirmed the set-up of what we arrived with at the Misano test. I preferred that to my old base set-up so it seems like we have moved our base set-up away from what I had.

“I don’t know if that is because the temperature suits that kind of bike set-up or if my riding style has evolved during this lockdown period and it has changed. But what I am requesting from the bike now I have a good feeling with this one,” Rea added.

“In the afternoon I waited for the temperature to be at the maximum to do two longer runs on both bikes to understand some test items. We felt pretty happy and now we look forward to Jerez.”

Catalunya test:

1. Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team) 1’40.450

2. Scott Redding (Aruba.it Ducati) +0.156

3 Tom Sykes (BMW Motorrad) +0.506

4. Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team) +0.687

5. Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha) +0.768

6. Eugene Laverty (BMW Motorrad) +1.044

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