Laverty happy with his BMW after first day of testing

Tyco BMW’s Michael Laverty is starting off in his 2016 BSB challenge exactly where he left last year with a test session in Spain today.

“We more or less parked the bike last year after we won the last race of the season.” the 34-year-old said as he began four days of testing at Cartagena. The Northern Irishman finished fourth in the 2015 title race after finding a sweet spot with the BMW that saw him win two of the last three races at Brand Hatch.   

“We made that decision because there was no point in changing a bike that worked.” he smiled. “It’s nice to have a bike that works and be quite relaxed and we will change very little today as we get settled back in on the bike.”

Laverty is joined in Spain by his new Tyco team mates Christian Iddon, road racer Ian Hutchinson and British Superstock champion, Josh Elliott and the former MotoGP racer reflected on how much easier staying on the same bike for a second year in a row has made his life.

“This time last year we were almost headless chickens trying to get everything right, getting comfortable on the bike and trying to get the power delivery right.” he recalled.

“We had a tough year of learning last year but we now have a good base setting and it makes so much difference. We made a couple of small changes between the first two sessions today and the bike responded immediately.

“I feel really positive being able to jump on a bike that is working straight away.” he smiled.