PBM Aprilia's Michael Laverty has switched away from the Ohlins forks he has used for the whole of his MotoGP season and the last two years in British Superbikes to K-Tech units at the behest of team boss Paul Bird in the hunt for more front-end feel.

Laverty is just half a second away from where he feels he needs to be - in the same ballpark as Colin Edwards - and now has more to work on in free practices three and four tomorrow ahead of qualifying.

"It's better than it has been for the last few rounds. We tried some K-Tech forks this morning. I went straight out this morning with the bike how it has been and had the second bike with the K-Tech on what wasn't exactly a guess setting but what they anticipated would work with the Bridgestones on the GPMS chassis and I felt comfortable straightaway," said Laverty, speaking outside the loos at Silverstone.

"We ended up working with those and this afternoon made some more improvements. I'm within half a second of Edwards, Barbera and the guys I should be racing with. We have made some positive changes that have given me more confidence in the front and made the bike easier to stop.

"Overall, we should be faster, we still have some problems with the rear with too much movement and pumping under acceleration so if we can settle that down a bit we can go a little faster again so I'm feeling positive.

"It's been tough going around in circles and not finding any improvement, and today we have so it's nice."