Eugene Laverty matc𝓰hed his best MotoGP result during the first long run he had done on 'real' Ducati MotoGP machinery!

The Irishma✃n only received his 2016 engine for opening practice in Qatar, at which point he realised much of his 🐎winter testing woes were down to using a different engine spec to the other GP14.2 riders.

The impact of the engine was so significant that Laverty and his Aspar crew🌞 were forced to abandon much of their test settingꦜs. "Our pre-season starts now," Laverty said on Thursday. "It's our first time on the real Ducati."

Just 20th fastest at the Losail tesꦕt, Laverty qualified 14th despite a gearshift problem on his final lap. But when the red lights went out Lave💞rty, like Bradley Smith ahead of him, got sideways off the line - then ran wide after an incident with Loris Baz.

"Bradley was right in front of me, we must have been on a dirty part of the track and whatever shit he spun up, I got as well!" Laverty said. "I made a few passes on lap one, including Loris Baz,♓ but he came inside me on one of the fa🦂st rights and pushed me off the track. So as if my start wasn't bad enough, that screwed it.

"But from lap tw🎀o onwards the race was faultless."

18th at the end of the opening lap, Laverty climbed up the order to twelfth by the midwa🎀y stage, a position he kept at the chequered flag after beating Honda rider Jack Miller and Aprilia's Alvar🐲o Bautista by a fraction of a second.

"I'd only done eight or nine [consecutive] laps, so 22 was a big difference. But we hung in there to the end in a fight with A❀lvaro and Jack and beat them to the line. Considering that was my first long run it wasn't bad!" Laverty smiled.

Qatar was also the first race with Michelin as exclusive🎃 tyre supplier.

"The biggest diffe🍌rence for me actually was having traction control again, because last year we didn't really have it on the Honda," Laverty reve🦂aled.

"My🌳 grip still went off quite a bit because we haven't played around with the rear shock much yet, we've kind of put that on the back burner because the traction control is doing such a good job anyway that I was able to maintain my lap time. Last year it would have dropped a lot."

Laverty had finished 🐼18th on his MotoGP debut at Qatar last season, when his Open class Ho💮nda was also 18th best through the speed trap. This year he was seventh fastest in a straight-line.

"This package is much more competitive because you✨ can see on the speed traps how fast the bike is. I've got a chance to overtake people in a straight line. It's a gift I didn't have last year and makes a big difference, especially in the early laps when everyone is together."

Looking to round two, the former WSBK title runner-up added: "We started here on the back foot. It was only really yesterday that we made headway. So if we can carry-on from here in Arge⛎ntina it should be positive.

"Argentina is a track I like; it favours my riding style and I'm going after performance now. I want to aim for Qualifying 2, more points and try and push towards th𝔍e top ten in the race."