Tyco BMW’s Michael Laverty did overcome issues with front feel and with the engine, but did experience problems when it came to a new tyre, and did his best lap of the weekend on a used one,
during the MCE British Superbike qualifying sessions at Brands Hatch.

The Wales-based rider came to the track with what his team had learnt from Thruxton, but that did not really work to his advantage. Also during the opening qualifying session he could not rev his S1000RR and felt the ‘engine pulling’. So he came back to the pits and his machine was reset, and he was able to come out and put down a lap that pushed him in to Q2.

Laverty will start the opening race from P11, but because he has a good pace on used tyres he hopes that will work in his favour during the races tomorrow on the GP track.

“We have struggled a bit all weekend and mainly we came here with what we learnt from Thruxton but it didn’t really work and yesterday we tried a lot of stuff and not finding answers. FP3 we got a bit of direction for it, and in Q1 the chassis felt immediately better. But I thought the lap times are not coming and the thing is not revving and I tried to do a lap time when the tyre was fresh but I tried four efforts and they were all slow,” said Laverty, speaking to Bikesportnews.com.

“So I came in and said something is up with the motor and they were able to see that everything leaned off and then I went back out and then went straight into the 25’s to get through to Q2. It was a bit chancy and I knew the chassis was better so I should have been going faster but the engine was pulling. It took a simple reset and then I came back. After ten laps I did a 25.9 and that was my best lap of the weekend on a ten lap old tyre.

“When I put a new in I did not go much faster, so that is a big issue to get the lap time. But it is OK in a race as I can manage it because you cant pin it on the side of the tyre all race long, race pace is OK but it makes it hard for us in qualifying. Overall we are in better shape than the lap times look on the timesheets but we have got a bit of work to do to get through from there.”

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