Michael Laverty will get his second crack at MotoGP in 2014 after team boss Paul Bird confirmed he will take the squad back into the blue riband class with added help from Aprilia next season.

The Irishman, who spent Monday and Tuesday testing with Bird's MCE British Superbike outfit at Cartagena, will ride alongside Broc Parkes, who raced with PBM when they ran the official Kawasaki World Superbike team. It is not known how much factory assistance Bird will get from Aprilia but it looks likely they will be only one of two Noale-backed teams.

"It's finally good to get it done and now I can really look forward to having a second year in MotoGP. With all the data and settings we have collected, plus the additional help from Aprilia, we should be in good shape for the whole season," said Laverty, speaking to bikesportnews.com.

"We don't know yet which versions of the bikes we will use but we will have more input from Aprilia as they bring updated versions of their engines and software. We will test their chassis back to back with our own and come up with the best overall package.

"The Cartagena test was good as I was pretty near the pace of Shane and Stuart. It was odd going back to Pirellis and steel brakes but I got comfortable really quickly and it was easy to see how Shane was so fast last year. I think that after spending a day and a half on the bike, I would have been competitive in BSB right from the off."