Eugene Laverty has not had the best of starts to the World Superbike weekend at the Nurburgring. The Irishman had a gearbox problem in first practice and an engine problem in qualifying practice.

The first session for Laverty got off to an uphill start with a few small problems that kept him from getting out on the track until the last few minutes. But the rider tested various solutions to end the qualifiers with the ninth best time. The data gathered will be analysed and lay the groundwork for the choices made tomorrow, both for Superpole and in view of the races on Sunday.

The Monaco resident already seems to have identified the areas where work is needed in order to shave off those few tenths of a second needed to catch up to the fastest riders today.

"Today was partly an uphill climb. Some problems in the first session kept me from leaving the garage until the end and I was only able to put in four fast laps,” said Laverty.

“In any case we made up for it quite a bit in the afternoon, trying a few different things that we'll work on for tomorrow. In terms of times, to be honest we are still about five tenths off. Sykes was really fast and if we want to stay in the points for the championship we need to get close to him.

“I struggled a bit today, especially in the more winding part of the track, so we're working on my RSV4 to make it more nimble. If we can manage to solve this problem I think that will be a big step forward".