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Eugene Laverty

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Eugene Laverty Talks About Aprilia’s New Factory Effort

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It’s been a turbulent 12 months for Shaun Muir Racing. Their much touted move to World Superbike in 2016, as reigning British Superbike champions, proved to be an exceptionally trying campaign that ended with infighting between the team and its lead rider, Josh Brookes.

Armed with the BMW S1000RR, expectations were high for the British squad, but ultimately they struggled to find a consistent balance during the season, and their relations with the German manufacturer petered out.

For many teams that would have brought dark clouds, but instead SMR may have hit the jackpot. The team launched their 2017 project this week at Jerez, and while beautiful sunshine flooded the Jerez circuit, the team lifted their garage doors to a genuine belief that they can win races.

Their partnership with Aprilia began at the November tests last year, but it was this week that the real fruits of that relationship came to bear.

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MotoGP

10 Things to Look Forward to in Motorcycle Racing for 2017

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The new year has officially started, the real world of contracts finally lining up with the world of motorcycle racing.

Riders who swapped factories are now free of their old contracts, their new contracts having commenced as the world greeted 2017.

That also leaves them free to post about the new season on social media again. Aleix Espargaro was so keen to do so that he posted right on the stroke of midnight.

If the riders are excited, that gives fans reason to be excited too. Here are 10 reasons to look forward to 2017.

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MotoGP

Paddock Pass Podcast #42 – Valencia

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The end of the racing season is here, which means our last race and testing update from the Paddock Pass Podcast crew. Thus, Episode 42 sees Steve English joined by David Emmett and Neil Morrison for a talk about the Valencia GP and following test week for the GP paddock, as well as the Jerez Test for World Superbike and MotoGP riders.

A lot happened between the racing and testing action, especially with the number of riders we saw switching seats for the 2017 season; as such, there is a bevy of items to talk about: Lorenzo on the Ducati, Vinales on the Yamaha, Iannone on the Suzuki, etc.

You won’t want to miss the insights the Paddock Pass Podcast team brings to these busy weeks in motorcycle racing, in both the MotoGP and World Superbike Championships.

As always, be sure to follow the Paddock Pass Podcast on Facebook, Twitter and subscribe to the show on iTunes and SoundCloud – we even have an RSS feed for you. If you like the show, we would really appreciate you giving it a review on iTunes. Thanks for listening!

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WSBK

Eugene Laverty Explains His Return to Aprilia & WSBK

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The Jerez Test was hardly the first day at school for either Eugene Laverty or Lorenzo Savadori, but while the bike was similar, it was new surroundings for both riders.

With the Shaun Muir Racing squad switching to an Aprilia steed in 2017, the opening day of the Jerez test was the team’s first experience of the Italian bike.

Both Laverty and Savadori have plenty of experience on the RSV4, the Irishman was a title contender on the bike, and Savadori raced it this year, and that certainly helped both throughout the day.

For SMR however, it was all change, having used BMW S1000RRs during their debut WorldSBK season. For team boss, Shaun Muir, it was clearly an important day for the British squad.

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MotoGP

Three Rider Opinions on MotoGP vs. WorldSBK

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With MotoGP and WorldSBK sharing the track at Jerez on Wednesday, Jonathan Rea surprised the paddock by leading the way for most of the day. So, Asphalt & Rubber sought out three opinions on the differences between the MotoGP and WorldSBK bikes, from the riders who have ridden both. -JB

As the sun set on the third day of the Jerez Test, Jonathan Rea hogged the limelight with the second fastest time of the day. With MotoGP bikes sharing the track with World Superbike runners, the story of the day was that Rea spent most of the day leading the “faster” GP boys. 

The question in the aftermath however was how does this reflect on both championships?

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WSBK

Jerez World Superbike Test Debrief – Tuesday

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The second day of the Jerez test dawned in similar circumstances to yesterday. With dense fog and cool temperatures, it looked as though there would be sparse action on track, but almost immediately Ondrej Jezek rolled down pitlane.

With the Grillini team only running for half of the allotted time, Jezek was keen to get out and gain some experience on a World Superbike machine.

While the Czech was spinning laps, the majority of the field was biding their time for the conditions to improve. While yesterday the KRT riders stayed in the pits all day they did get some wet weather running today.

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WSBK

Jerez World Superbike Test Debrief – Monday

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Come to Spain they said, the weather will be great they said…There are typically only a handful of valuable winter testing venues. Jerez in the south of Spain is one of the most popular.

Usually the winter sun provides almost perfect conditions for World Superbike teams to undertake their off-season programs. The weather was not co-operating today, and there was limited mileage for all of the runners.

The test did however offer the first glimpses of the Milwaukee Aprilia. Their partnership has been one of the biggest off-season talking points, and while Lorenzo Savadori and Eugene Laverty were unable to complete a lot of miles, they were at least able to start their tenure with the team.

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MotoGP

Saturday MotoGP Summary at Motegi: Highsides Return

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If anyone was nostalgic for the days of 500cc two strokes, they got a glimpse of what the dark side of that era was like this weekend at Motegi.

Rider after rider has been flung from his bike, spat into the air as a rear tire slipped then bit again, snapping the bike around, suspension compressing and then explosively decompressing, catapulting the rider into the sky.

It has kept the medical helicopter busy: Eugene Laverty and Jorge Lorenzo have been flown to and fro for medical examination, with the second helicopter kept on standby having to take its place.

On Friday, the victims had been Eugene Laverty and Dani Pedrosa. Pedrosa had paid the heaviest price, snapping his right collarbone and flying home to Spain for another operation – his fourteenth, by all counts.

Laverty had escaped relatively lightly, but was still forced to sit out the morning session on Saturday as a precaution. Jorge Lorenzo was even more fortunate. He was launched at Turn 3 at the end of FP3, and had to be flown to hospital for checks, before being allowed to return and take part in FP4.

He feared he had damaged his left ankle, but checks revealed it was just bruising.

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MotoGP

Friday MotoGP Summary at Motegi: Highsides, Tires, And The Speed of Marquez

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What is the biggest downside of the flyaways? The three back-to-back races are crucial on the way to the end of the championship. This is the time you need to perform, where you can make the difference by pushing that little bit harder.

The downside, of course, is that if you push too far you can lose everything. “Three races in a row is always complicated,” Valentino Rossi told the press conference on Thursday. “You can have a small problem in the first race and pay a lot.”

The first day at Motegi was a concerted attempt to prove Rossi right. The afternoon session turned into a concerted effort by several riders to hurt themselves, sometimes successfully.

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MotoGP

WSBK: Milwaukee SMR Switching to Aprilia for 2017+

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Aprilia have finally confirmed that they will be providing factory backing for the Milwaukee SMR squad in WorldSBK for the 2017 and 2018 seasons.

It had been an open secret for months that the Milwaukee team were looking to make a switch to Aprilia, and they had signed Eugene Laverty and Lorenzo Savadori to contest the championship for them.

But, it took a long time for the official confirmation to come through.

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MotoGP

A Question of Trust: Matching Riders to Crew Chiefs

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The music has stopped for the MotoGP riders, with all of them now having taken their seats for next year. That does not mean that contract season is over, however. We are in the middle of another migration, this time of crew chiefs and mechanics.

It all started with Jorge Lorenzo. The Movistar Yamaha rider’s move to Ducati for next season left him needing a crew chief. Once his current crew chief Ramon Forcada made the decision to stay with Yamaha, and work with Maverick Viñales, who takes Lorenzo’s place, that precipitated a search for someone to work with the Spaniard at Ducati.

It was a search that took some time, but which saw Cristian Gabarrini tempted back to Ducati. The quiet, reflective Italian had been set somewhat adrift after the retirement of Casey Stoner, with whom Gabarrini won MotoGP titles at Ducati and Honda.

First, he acted as engineering advisor to Marc Márquez and his crew chief Santi Hernandez, but Márquez made it clear he wanted only to work with Hernandez. Then he was put in charge of Honda’s Open Class project, and managing the bikes.

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