It has been a difficult early WorldSBK season for Eugene Laverty, with technical issues plaguing his GoEleven team as they got their Ducati V4Rs later than expected.

Running Bitubo suspension was seen by some as the hard way to do it, but after a fault with tyre temperature and pressure equipment and/or processes had been solved, Laverty discovered pace in Thailand.

In Spain, Laverty nearly got the podium in race one, but fell instead, but he followed that up with a pair of sixth places. It was not all plain sailing, however.

“Today has been good for the team because that is their best result, top Independent Team award today, but it is difficult for me to be content with that when I know the potential is so much more from yesterday’s race," Laverty told bikesportnews.com last night.

"Then in the Superpole race today my rear brake was broken, and I went backwards then. In that race as well, we still do not know what the problem is yet, but after a few laps the anti-wheelie or something was going nuts. So we have had a few problems.

"The bike thought it was lifting the front. It was still going in a straight line but just getting out the slow corners everything wouldn’t go and that made it really impossible to accelerate.

The bike was handling so well so the frustrating thing was that I had caught that group in front and I said ‘We are on for a podium here’ but with that problem it was damage limitation. But we managed to get the top independent slot even with those issues.”

The chassis is possibly the strongest point of the Ducati, even though it is a power and rev-monster as a standard bike. Laverty knows that when the setup is good, it works really well in the curves and twists.

“This weekend with me and Alvaro it has been pretty comparable in the corners. The straightline is where the big difference is. We have brought it down a bit during the weekend but Friday it was really evident the speed deficit I had.

"The speed trap did not paint a true picture because I was accelerating a lot stronger. Where it said ten it was probably more like 15 or 16kmph down. We have reduced that a little bit but whenever you are giving that away in a straight line, it is a fair amount.”

Laverty was close behind the accident in the Sunday Superpole race, when Michael Rinaldi and Michael van der Mark crashed. “I was in the inside behind Michael and he had the inside line. I saw it unfold where Jonathan came from the outside and in my opinion gave him no space.

Rinaldi was on the line and Jonathan hit him and unfortunately he went down then. We have to be careful in the first corner when there is a space like that. You have to give riders room and that was a little bit dangerous, from what I saw.

"But I saw it unfolding two seconds before it did, so I just got the hell out of there, put my anchors on, waited for the riders to hit the deck and I exited.”