2013 World Superbike runner-up Eugene Laverty re-familiarised himself with the Aprilia RSV4 at Jerez this week during a three-day pre-season test as he prepares for his return to the series in 2017.
The Northern Irishman has been racing in the MotoGP World Championship for the past two years with the Aspar team, enjoying a strong year 2016 campaign on the Ducati GP14.2. But after the Spanish team could not guarantee him a Desmosedici GP16 for next season, Laverty opted to sign with the Milwaukee Aprilia outfit instead.
Laverty spent the test evaluating new parts for the 2017 RSV4 and also getting used to WorldSBK machinery again. The 30-year-old was able to feel comfortable on the bike almost immediately, greatly helped by the Pirelli tyres which he said offered him a lot more grip than he was expecting.
“I’m surprised just how much grip the tyres have when it first hits the gas,” he said. “Yesterday morning (Tuesday 22) there were still some damp patches, it looked relatively dry but still a lot of damp patches out there. With these tyres it seems that the bike doesn’t react as much to the wet. If it had been in MotoGP this year, they we may have been on our arse, but when Johnny (Rea) came past he was absolutely flying across the damp patches, so I followed suit and got going.”
Twitter: Blink and you’ll miss @eugenelaverty fly past! https://t.co/CGeyVJXYDn (@SMRWorldSBK)
Across the three days, Laverty completed around 140 laps of the Jerez Circuit and was just over two seconds off of the best time set by World Champion Jonathan Rea. Laverty tried several different chassis and engine variations, and found that the RSV4 had come a long way since he last rode it in 2013. Citing that it was already a good motorcycle, he felt that the bike now worked a lot better on used rubber and that the electronics had taken a big step forward.
“The Aprilia has definitely improved. It was good back then but some areas have improved right away; the guys had told me that in 2014 they’d made a big step and you can see that,” he said.
“Towards the end of ’14 Sylvain (Guintoli) and Marco (Melandri) were dominating the last lot of rides. It looked like they’d made a big step with the bike and it looked like it was lot easier to ride and definitely is.
“The bike was always good and looked after tyres well, but it could still be difficult towards the end of the races. It often became more of a handful. Now I’d be happy to go out and do a 20-lap run whereas three years ago I would have dodged that in testing because it used to really sap the energy out of you. Now the bike is a lot more manageable.”
Laverty and Milwaukee Aprilia will be back in action at the end of January when pre-season testing resumes before heading to Phillip Island in Australia just a few weeks later for the first round of the 2017 season.
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