Milwaukee Aprilia rider Eugene Laverty delivered a solid point scoring performance in Race 2 at Laguna Seca, coming home P6.
Lining up P10 after his Race 1 retirement, Eugene made a rapid start and took the fight to his rivals, battling hard with Melandri and Camier as he made his way through the field.
After passing Mercado on Lap 4 for 7th, he began to chase down Torres before the Spanish rider crashed out at Turn 1. Finding a comfortable groove with his Aprilia RSV4 RF he was closing down Fores in 5th place, but ran out of laps before he could make his move.
The WorldSBK series now heads into its summer break. The team will return to the track at Lausitzring in Germany later this month for a two-day test , ahead of Round 9 at the same circuit in August.
With a busy schedule for the important test, they will work hard to further hone and improve the RSV4 RF ahead of the final five race weekends of 2017.
The action continues at Round 9 from Lausitzring in Germany, 18-20 August
Eugene Laverty #50
Grid – P10 / Race – P6, 10 points
“It was a positive result today considering that we had to start from P10, and the reverse grid rules didn’t help us this time. I had some good scraps and I felt pretty comfortable on the bike. The big improvement today was the front tyre; yesterday there was some problem with it that wasn’t normal, but today it functioned correctly and I was able to push a lot more. Perhaps 5th would have been on the cards if we’d started higher, but I still think that was our best race of the year. Heading to the test at Lausitzring we have a good basis from here to work with. The improvement on the front was a big benefit as we showed here in Free Practice, and our aim is to take another big forward step with the RSV4 RF.”