Source: Supplied.

DRIVE M7 Aspar Honda will partner Eugene Laverty with Nicky Hayden in the 2015 MotoGP World Championship on board Honda RCV213-RS production racers.

Laverty, 28, will move from Suzuki’s World Superbike squad to Aspar, marking his return to grand prix racing after contesting the 2007 and 2008 seasons in the 250 class.

“I am very excited to take on this new challenge,” Laverty said. “My greatest wish was to compete in MotoGP and finally it will be granted thanks to the DRIVE M7 Aspar Team. I have had to wait quite a long time, but finally the chance is here and my dream has become a reality.

“I learnt a lot the last time I was in the MotoGP paddock, but I was very young back then and I didn’t have the right material to succeed. Now I am coming back in the top category on a competitive bike and with an experienced team. I have had to be patient but now I am ready for this.

“Since moving up to superbikes I have had to adapt to lots of different bikes and I have won on all of them, which has been a good experience for me. I guess this can be an advantage as I switch categories.”

The Aspar team this week confirmed that in the smaller categories they will depart from Moto2 at the end of this year and will have a renewed focus on Moto3 in 2015 with Mahindra machinery being ridden by Juanfran Guevara, 2014 Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup champion Jorge Martin and possibly a third rider.