Milwaukee Aprilia’s Eugene Laverty isn’t crying out for the proposed technical changes to the 2018 WorldSBK championship and believes it is up to teams and riders to up their game in an effort to challenge Kawasaki and Ducati on a more regular basis.

The Irishman returned to the championship this season to find that everything had moved on quite considerably since he left at the end of 2014 but isn’t a big fan of altering the series in order to level the playing field - especially since Aprilia will probably lose 1000rpm off their top end along with the green and red bikes.

“There’s been a lot of talk about changing regulations, if they change it, okay, but it’s not something I’m crying out for. I believe that with the Aprilia and some of the other manufacturers, they’ve got the bike to be competitive, it just requires hard work to be put in, but this is hard on both time and money. But that’s what you’ve got to do if you want to win, it’s up to the rest of us to raise our game,” said Laverty.

“Johnny is on the strongest bike and he’s making the most of it. That’s why he rides the first three or four rounds strong and he ends up winning the championship in the first three or four rounds, because he then nurses it home. So, Chaz is often having to over-ride the bike to try and chase down the Kawasaki, which is difficult. There isn’t much to split the two riders, but I think the Kawasaki is the strongest bike on the grid right now. So when you’ve got something in reserve like Johnny has, it’s hard to beat a guy like that.”