Milwaukee Aprilia had a disappointing Race 1 at Laguna Seca, which saw a retirement for Eugene Laverty.
The Superpole sessions showed promise for the team, teammate Lorenzo Savadori producing a strong display to go quickest in Superpole 1 session and join Eugene in the pole position shootout.
Eugene, having run strongly in the Free Practice sessions, ended Superpole 2 P5 on the grid, his best qualifying result of the year. Lorenzo eventually finished P10, after a mistake cost him time on his quickest lap.
Eugene made a strong start in the race, maintaining his 5th position behind the frontrunners. However an issue with his front tyre caused him to lose grip and feeling, and eventually resulted in him crashing at Turn 3 before the half-way mark.
The team are still confident of a good showing in Race 2 on Sunday after the pace they have shown so far, and will give their full efforts tonight to ensure a deserved strong result tomorrow.
The action continues at #USWorldSBK with Race 2 at 14:00 PDT on Sunday 9th July
Eugene Laverty #50
Grid – P5 / Race – Retired “All weekend we have been in the top 5 and it was really nice to consolidate that in Superpole today with our best result in P5. Our pace was what we hoped and expected, at the tail-end of the top four as they have been all year. Unfortunately in the race, I got a good start but the front bikes were just running away. I had really bad feeling in the front and so little grip, and I was just trying to hold on before I dropped it just under half distance. It was very frustrating as the bike has felt great all weekend and then suddenly bad in the race. Pirelli are looking into it, because the tyre didn’t look normal and may have been defective.I don’t want to tempt fate too much ahead of Race 2 because we should have run well today. Hopefully we can learn what caused the crash today; if it was a tyre issue then we know the bike is in a good position. The rear tyre was holding up well which it hasn’t previously, so there are good points to take from today.”