A brace of top six finishes in yesterday's Imola World Superbike double-header has given Aprilia's Eugene Laverty the confidence boost he needed and, following today's official test, will go into the Assen round with renewed confidence.

Laverty bagged fifth and sixth places in races that were dominated by reigning champion Carlos Checa but the Toomebridge man, who was seen rubbing his injured hand on the grid, took heart from his points haul and said he collected valuable data to take to the Netherlands in a fortnight.

“A fifth and sixth place are not bad at all after the Superpole yesterday, but I won't pretend I wouldn't have liked to have been battling with the guys at the front. I got a good start in both races and in the second we made some good progress on the RSV4 but the pace of the group up front was just too fast. We need to keep working. These two races were useful for providing a lot of information on the bike, we'll work on that in the tests tomorrow in the hope that that it will give us some help for the next round," said Laverty.