Eugene Laverty who will be racing for World Superbike team Yamaha Sterilgarda in 2011, got the grand tour of Yamaha’s headquarters at Germo di Lesmo in Italy (minus 66 workers and the assembly line is now in Spain) and got a close hand look at the new 2011 YZF-R that he’ll be riding next season.
Laverty and crew chief Frankie Carchedi studied the data from the Magny Cours test and discussed changes to the bike’s settings ahead of their one day test in Valencia next week (including Marco Melandri and new team manager Andrea Dosoli,officially confirmed yesterday) and the test at Phillip Island at the end of the month.
The new rider also met the mechanics who work on the Yamaha Superbikes to give him a close hand look on how the team works behind the scenes.
“It was nice to spend the day at the workshop and meet the guys who don’t always come to the race track,” said Eugene Laverty.
“We also studied some data with Frankie from the first test in Magny Cours and looked at where we can improve.
It gave me some good information for me to understand what I need to do differently and work on at the next test.
It has all been really positive and a great opportunity to do it away from the race track with no pressure.
The workshops were really impressive and I got to see everything, you can it’s very well organised.
I’m really looking to getting on the 2011 racebike for the first time next week at Valencia and then Phillip Island at the end of the month to get cracking again!”