Milwaukee Aprilia’s Eugene Laverty got in 45 dry laps today at the Jerez World Superbike test but was still a little cautious as the track was still damp in places after yesterday’s downpour in southern Spain.

The Irishman was able to get down to some reasonable laptimes towards the end of the day as he continued to familiarise himself with the RSV4, doing long runs on worn tyres and says he will look at a time attack tomorrow.

“There were still damp patches out there, the water seemed to settle down into the cracks in the asphalt. When I did my practice start, it looked relatively dry but spun up. It seems with these tyres the bike doesn’t react as much to the damp patches, had it been MotoGP this year, I probably would have been on my arse,” said Laverty, speaking at the track.

“When Jonathan came past, he was flying on the damp patches so I followed suit and got going. My fastest lap was a 1’43.1, not very fast, but we did some long runs on old tyres but tomorrow we need to be looking at 1’41s or pushing on at least. Jonathan was on a mission when he came past, five seconds or something faster, but I will try and tuck in with someone tomorrow. I’ve got Lorenzo’s data to check too and that will be a good comparison.

“I was surprised just how much grip the new tyre has when I first touched the gas. I was trying ndifferent front tyres as well, so there was a lot to evaluate. The fastest time came on old tyres, really.

Laverty will get a newer-spec engine and chassis parts to test tomorrow as scheduled, along with some other work to do for Aprilia so they have more data to examine during the test ban.

“That’s all for tomorrow. Today was a nice bonus to get some dry laps, we didn’t think we would get any so it was nice to get 45 laps today in relatively dry conditions. We are now putting a plan together for tomorrow for the engine and some chassis bits. There are a few main things the Aprilia guys want us to get through tomorrow, so that will be the main thing.

“The bike is a lot easier to ride than last time. It was always good and looked after its tyres well but it could still be more of a handful towards the end of race and now I would be happy to go and do a 20-lap run but before I would have dodged that in testing as it used to sap your energy, now it is much more manageable.”