Eugene Laverty makes his competitive debut with the RC Squadra Corse BMW team at this weekend’s Aragon WorldSBK season opener but despite testing well at the Spanish track, he isn’t making any predictions about 2021 just yet.

Due to some illness and circumstance beyond his control, Laverty missed out on some winter test time but a few days at Aragon - one of the BMW’s worst tracks in 2020 - and Barcelona saw the Irishman pleasantly surprised, especially with the new engine.

“A big step is the engine, a fair bit more grunt and pretty sure more RPM but that’s to be confirmed. So, depending on the final regulations and whatever else but the thing was fast at Catalunya on that long straight,” Laverty told bikesportnews from his Algarve gin palace.

“But it’s not the be all and end all. It is nice in a rare situation to be able to pass somebody a straight line and you don’t have to work your ass off to try and pass them on one of the 15 corners. Just make sure that you’re close enough to slipstream them, then pass them in a straight line, that’s nice to have in your pocket.”

Laverty and fellow satellite rider Jonas Folger are still in the middle of evaluating a load of parts that have come down from the factory, so this weekend’s bike won’t exactly be as tested.

“The bike that I rode in testing was not the full blown M1000RR it was still had some bits from last year. Because I did have a whole year under my belt so while I would love to just go out there and on go on the brand-new shiny bike, it does make sense to test bit by bit.

“We put in the new swingarm and found the benefit of that and I think for this Aragon race weekend I’ll be having a different chassis that the other guys from BMW had the chance to test and confirmed it was better.”

After a year in the Shaun Muir-run works team, Laverty had to move into a satellite operation but he took with him a year of experience on bike that needed work.

“I’ve always said with the BMW after year one, the bike was a bit of a light switch. When I first rode it, the power delivery, traction control, everything hadn’t moved forward at all. So that was the first task in winter tests and the first few rounds to make the bike rideable. And it was, by the time I got to Portimao, it finally was rideable for the race. And then next up was Aragon.

And we were rubbish at Aragon. My brother John was trackside, he was able to see we had a big problem in braking compared to Chaz Davies, we weren’t able to finish decelerating. So, for me, it was making the bike transfer better, rotating the bike in the opposite direction.

“And so, it’s been interesting, but it is one of those things that you have to suck it and see, make the changes. It’s taken us so long, because none of the conventional stuff seemed to work.”

Laverty identified that braking and corner entry are the two areas that have seen the biggest areas of improvement, prompted by Davies (whose sister Jodi Lee is married to Laverty’s older brother Michael) which he will need at the season’s opening rounds.

“I prefer to be honest, you know, I don’t have time for bullshit. I don’t want to be negative or pessimistic but our two most difficult tracks last year were Aragon and Estoril. We’re starting with those two. So, I don’t want to I don’t want to give it the big bejaysus and say that I’m going to put it on the podium the first two rounds.

“I’m going to wait until after these first two rounds because it’s only going to be onwards and upwards from there. It’s going to be a tough start. I’m under no illusion, but we should do a better job than we did last year at Aragon and Estoril and I think that’ll show the signs of improvement.”