Tyco BMW’s Michael Laverty had a solid start to his MCE British Superbike weekend at Brands Hatch. He was the fastest rider in FP2 and bagged his first front row start of the year in qualifying.

It was evidently clear that the Northern Irishman had the pace to fight for podiums, but when it came to race-day he struggled in race one, and even though his team improved the S1000RR in the final outing, he still found it hard to maintain a fast pace that lasted the entire race distance.

Laverty had no problems setting a few fast laps, but found it frustrating that he could not sustain the speed over the twenty lappers yesterday, and missed out on a spot in the top three. His team are now working on the rear linkage and shock settings to get up to speed in time for the next round at Thruxton.

But its not all doom and gloom for the Powys-based rider, as he did come away with two top five finishes, and is only one point off a top six place in the overall championship standings.

“Not bad points wise - not nearly what I was hoping for as I hoped to be fighting for podiums. In race one I was struggling a lot and we made it better for race two, but we are not where we need to be over race distance,” said Laverty, speaking to bikesportnews.com at the track.

“On one off laps I was able to push really hard on the brakes, but in a race situation you can only do that for so long and then you started folding the front and I was starting to do too much on the brakes - you need a good rear contact then you open the gas, but we are getting better but it is still frustrating for me. We are so close but we need to keep working on it.

“The team are going to look back through the data with the rear linkage and shock settings and there is still a lot to iron out with the power delivery through the Motec and its not where the Kawasaki
and Yamaha’s are. We need to work out a way to smooth out the power delivery with the Motec, and try again at Thruxton.

“We are capable of more and we thought that we would come here fighting for two podium finishes, but putting too fast laps together was fine, but not over race distance - we have got to make it to the next level.”