Samsung Honda's Michael Laverty has proclaimed yesterday's MCE British Superbike event at Assen the 'worst day of his season' so far after he struggled to find any consistent grip from the Pirelli tyres.

The Toomebrige man qualified well for both outings but ran out of traction in race one using the softer of the control tyres and then, after switching to the harder for race two, found he no grip from the start.

“That was a horrible day for me that had promised so much – coming at the start of the Showdown this is my worst day of the season. We had been working so hard and had a good pace but we were always worrying about tyre choice for the races," said Laverty.

"In the first race we used the softer compound which had good pace, but it wore and I dropped back down the field to seventh. For the second race we used the harder tyre but we couldn’t get the grip. That has put me on the back foot and I have to come back strongly at Silverstone – it has been so frustrating as I couldn’t get the result that I wanted.”