Eugene Laverty: Northern Irishman to end riding career to take management role with Bonova action BMW team
- Published
Eugene Laverty finished runner-up in the 2013 World Superbike Championship
Northern Ireland's Eugene Laverty is to end his World Superbike Championship riding career at the end of this season to take a management role with the Bonovo action BMW Racing team.
The 36-year-old, who was runner-up in the 2013 World Superbike Championship, will become co-owner of the BMW team.
Laverty's career has including racing for BMW Motorrad over three seasons and a two-year stint in MotoGP.
"It's going to be a very interesting new challenge," said Laverty.
The Northern Irishman will become part of team management at Bonovo action BMW alongside owner owner Jürgen Röder and team manager Michael Galinski.
Laverty's position will see him undertaking a role as a riding coach in addition to helping to acquire sponsors for the team.
"Jürgen Röder and Michael Galinski made this proposal to me and I really appreciate that they believe I can fulfil this role", Laverty said.
"I wanted to finish in a strong way with some decent results, but obviously after the last rounds I had to change my thinking a little bit, as I'm having some difficulties.
"I really enjoy to be part of this team though, as it's probably the best team I've ever ridden in during my career. And opportunities like this don't come along very often."
After competing in the British Supersport Championship, Laverty made his debut in the World Superbike Championship in 2011 and he has clinched 13 race wins and 35 podium positions during his career in the series.
His last race win came at Phillip Island in Australia in 2014 before his move to MotoGP for the 2015 and 2016 campaigns.
Laverty's career has also included twice finishing runner-up in the World Supersport Championship.
He joined BMW's factory team in 2020 but was dropped in favour of Dutch rider Michael van der Mark for the following year.
The Northern Irishman rode for BMW satellite team RC Squadra Corse for four rounds of the 2021 season and was called into the factory team to replace the injured Tom Sykes at Jerez and Portimao before securing a BMW ride for 2022.