Laverty will bring the curtain down on a decade-long career in WSBK at the end of the 2022 campaign to join the management structure at BMW’s satellite team Bonovo, where he will also serve as rider coach.
The decision was announced during last month’s sixth round of the championship at Most, which marked the halfway point of the season.
Laverty said he was keen to continue racing in WSBK for the foreseeable future when team owner Jurgen Roder and team manager Michael Galinski first made the offer to take on a role in the running of the Bonovo outfit.
But a violent crash in practice that forced him to miss the Assen round and a string of difficult results thereafter prompted him to reconsider his decision, and he concluded that the Bonovo team would be better off with an up-and-coming rider in his place.
“It’s something I have been thinking about for the past months,” Laverty, 36, told the official WSBK website.
“At the beginning of the year Jurgen Roder and Michael Galinski made this proposal to me quite early, not necessarily for next year immediately, but to say, ‘look, you know, whenever you think about to stop racing, we have a great opportunity for you here’.
“Initially I said no, it’s not time because I want to return to some good results. It’s been a difficult few years and they understood that.
“But after the crash in Assen and Estoril, physically, it’s been difficult and the performance hasn’t been there. I had to make the choice, and opportunities like this don’t come very often.
“So yeah, I called Jurgen and said okay, ‘let’s do this, this is something for my future, it’s the next chapter.’
“I’ve had my chance on this bike, it’s my third year on the BMW, so maybe it’s time to give another rider the chance.”
Eugene Laverty, Bonovo Action BMW
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Laverty said he will take time to adapt to his new management role, but hopes his extensive experience in WSBK will help Bonovo to push its way up the grid.
“The first years will be a transition period, sure, I’m going to be learning from the bosses,” he said. “But also at the track I’ll be taking the role as a rider coach to work together with the riders.
“I know this bike well, so hopefully I can offer something in that department. It’s certainly a new chapter for me and it’s nice that both Jurgen and Michael believe that I can fulfill this role.”
Laverty moved up to the WSBK in 2011…
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