Aprilia’s Eugene Laverty did not let grip issues deter him from clinching the World Superbike win in the last race of the day at Laguna Seca, and the victory came as a shock to the Irishman as he did not expect to do so well.

Laverty started off the weekend with a strong third place finish in race one, and emulated his good form in race two, rocketing to the front as soon as the red lights went off. The Monaco based rider then found himself riding in third place behind the exhaust of Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes and Althea Racing’s Davide Giugliano in the first phase of the race. Laverty then bided his time throughout the middle portion of the outing, staying in contact with the leaders without taking any pointless risks, also taking into consideration the less than excellent grip.

Laverty's strategy paid off when four laps from the end he launched his attack on Giugliano for second place and then overtook Sykes two laps later. The grand finale had him controlling his rivals and flying across the finish in the lead. His seventh victory of the season and the third place in race one take him to second place in the rider standings, 23 points behind Sykes with two more rounds left to go.

“This was anything but an easy race. On Saturday I struggled quite a bit to keep up with the front runners and I managed to finish on the podium by overtaking twice in the last lap. I want to thank my team because we worked a lot on the bike and took a big step forward that allowed me to ride better in spite of the grip issues,” said Laverty.

“I pushed hard from the first to the last lap and Davide and Tom didn't make this win an easy one. This is a result that I really didn't expect which now takes me to second place in the rider standings, but we have two very different rounds ahead of us.

“I struggled last year at Magny Cours, but my RSV4 has grown a lot so things could change, whereas Jerez is our test track so I could have an advantage there. In any case I'll need to give 100 percent in every session for the next two weekends. I'd like to dedicate my win to my engineer Marco Bertolatti who became a father just a few hours ago.”