Eugene Laverty has been able to continue the development he began last season in the works BMW WorldSBK team and now has a bike he says is rideable thanks to electronics work and new parts from the Bavarian factory.

However, testing is limited to 10 days per rider in 2021 and Laverty thinks his testing has been too limited so far, and looks forward to some in-season riding away from the heat and pressure of a race weekend.

“We’ve got a test at Alcaraz in June, after Misano, so that will bring me up to five days,” he confirmed. “After that, I’ll have five days more so let’s see if I can do three days or more than two days somewhere. I would have liked to test at Estoril, because after alongside Aragon, Estoril was our worst track because it’s where you have to brake hard, basically where Chaz Davies wins.

"That’s where we’ve been weak, the tracks where braking performance is the most important thing. It’s just a pity that Estoril is so early because to go and test there would have been good, but we still may push to do that, even though it’s after the race. I would like to go there and work on getting the thing to shut down and stop in corner entry.

Some wildcard moves on the final day drew some improvements in his bike’s behaviour in that area, according to Eugene. “Yeah, we made a big step. Actually, doing something quite unconventional, already on day one in the afternoon. It was nice to see on the data because it shouldn’t have helped me, but it did. I don't care what the computer says in terms of settings.

"If I'm going faster and I’m braking better, that’s all that matters. So at least we made a step there compared to the two race weekends we had at Aragon. We made no progress, and that frustrated the hell out of me. Back-to-back weekends, you’re meant to learn from the first one and make some headway on the second and we didn’t, whereas at this test at least we improved that.”

Now that Laverty is in a single rider satellite team, he agrees that his own path is the one he has to follow, and he has to be more insistent on changes that work for him personally. “Yeah, I have to,” he said. “Whenever I joined this project, the bike really was in need of development because they lost a year. Year one, there was no progress made, so whenever I rode it I realised, first we have to make this bike rideable and that’s what it took until we did those summer races in August.

"We did incredible work with the electronics guys. Some of the guys that came on board really brought the bike forward and made it rideable. That was the key, but by then I had lost my job. So I was trying to do the development work with the focus towards year two, as what it should have been, but things moved around.

"I’m fortunate that I still get a chance, in a satellite team albeit, but still I have to now just look after myself. The bike is rideable now, so I just have to say fuck it - this is what I need to go fast, and nothing else matters.”

BMW had some staff inside Laverty’s pitbox at times in Aragon, and he is already getting some benefits from that, although there are seemingly still some differences in bike spec between the three BMW teams at this early stage. “They gave us a new swingarm to try there. I was really happy about that because I wanted to at least get some of the 2021 parts on there, and that was a good step forward.

"I don’t even know what frame I’m on, to be honest. It’s something I’d have to look at, but the swingarm helped us to stop the bike in corner entry, but it also gave us grip on initial exit, so win-win. There was no negative with it. But we knew it was going to be better, honestly.

"The direction was clear. It creates grip. That’s what it is. It creates grip at that point. The same with the exit. That’s what we kind of lost with the 2020 swingarm. I wasn’t there in 2019 and the direction had nothing to do with me. So the 2020 swingarm was all about one-lap pace. Now the focus is more like racing.”