Tyco BMW’s Michael Laverty's second MCE British Superbike race at the Brands Hatch Indy circuit came to an abrupt stop, after his engine went bang on his S1000RR, putting an end to his race ambitions.

The Northern Irishman was riding high well inside the points when smoke started to plume from his bike. Laverty is still unsure what caused the mechanical issue but his team will be investigating, but it could be a possible broken component such as a valve train.

The Wales based racer finished race one in sixth, just behind Quattro Plant Kawasaki’s Luke Mossey and is still in with a shout of a place in the Showdown as he is fifth in the overall standings.

“We have just been missing a small fraction over the last turn this weekend and it hurt us as there is not a lot of hard breaking areas to make up time if you are struggling in one certain area, an under 46 second lap is tough,” said Laverty, speaking to bikesportnews.com.

“The Kawasaki boys were doing a better job with their set up this weekend so we have to bounce back from here. We have had a strong package at every circuit we have been to and this the first one where we have struggled a little bit.

“It was frustrating [when the engine blew up in race two], we made a few changes after race one and the bike was actually better and the lap times were stronger.

“I knew the exit on my last corner was my weak area but in race one it actually got better. [In race two] I was quite happy with the position I was in, but the engine let go and we are unsure what
happened and a lot of oil went into the exhaust that is whey there was so much smoke.

“The boys will strip the engine and figure out what the problem was and make sure it doesn’t happened again. I imagine a component broke possibly a valve train because the smoke was coming from the exhaust but until they strip it we will not know for sure.”