Laverty sets sights on factory ride

Eugene Laverty has firmly set his sights on a factory ride for 2017 after yet another impressive performance at Jerez this weekend. Capitalising on 14^th on the grid, the Apsar Ducati rider was able to once again stun the MotoGP paddock by finishing ninth.

Top of MotoGP’s contingent of British riders for the fourth weekend out of four, Laverty remains without a contract for next season. But, with the paddock now abuzz with talk of his newfound form on the two year old Ducati GP14 machine, he admitted to MCN that he now has much higher targets than he had only weeks ago. 

“It seems in MotoGP that April is the new July! There’s never been a year with so many riders out of contract, and if we all wait until July there’d be a bit of a traffic jam! Things are moving a bit more this weekend now, and it’s nice now to be included when people are talking about who is going where.

“I had a difficult time in testing, and people looked at the black and white at the start – ‘oh Laverty’s at the bottom again.’ We’ve still been playing catch up until now, so now we need to start getting the results we need.”

He is already very close with the man who turned around Ducati´s Desmosedici machine, Gigi Dall’Igna, from the time the duo shared at Aprilia in World Superbikes.

And there may be the potential for an upgrade in status within the Bologna manufacturer – even onto one of the much higher spec Pramac Ducatis currently occupied by Scott Redding and the injured Danilo Petrucci – even if his sights are even higher.

“I do like how Ducati works – I like how Gigi works, and he has brought that way to Ducati. We’re down the pecking order, but he’s still very considerate to us, gives us good advice, and listens to us. I like where I’m at right now but I’d still like to be on a factory contract.

“In MotoGP, a factory ride is where you want to be. For job security and for bike development. Some riders maybe aren’t in a position to make that jump, but I’ve worked with Gigi before to make a bike exactly the way I want it to be. You can’t do that on a privateer bike.”