Honda Racing's Michael Laverty has completed his first shakedown test aboard the 2012 Fireblade he will campaign in this year's British Superbike Championship and is already impressed with the new electronics and engine.

Laverty was with team-mate Jon Kirkham at Cadwell Park for the inital runs after their first test at Snetterton on Monday was halted by high winds and rain. Although Laverty has to get used to a completely different engine characteristic after swapping away from the crossplane-crank Yamaha, he was happy with the motor and electronics, even though historically has hasn't been a big fan of TC.

"I've never really used traction control an awful lot as I find slides easier to control using my hand rather than a box. The engine took a little bit of getting used to as it is so different from the Yamaha but it's feels like a strong motor so I am happy with that to start with," said Laverty, speaking to bikesportnews.com this morning.

"The major difference is the way is punches off the corners, especially slow corners, whereas the Yamaha was really good at getting out of fast turns. We have to work on corner entry and the air-bleed system a little bit but we have two more days before the official tests.

"We made a couple of small changes to the chassis but you can't go re-inventing the wheel on the first day. The base settings in the bike were a pretty close guess and are a mix of what Shakey and Kiyo used last year. We will need to make some tweaks here and there but changes will come when we get into the season."