While Laverty moves on his team-mate Ian Lowry will stay in Supersport to contest the hotly fought championship for another season.

Laverty has a wealth of experience in the Superbike class and the Ulsterman is looking forward to the challenge in 2008 after dominating this season in British Supersport.

“I'm very happy to be staying with Relentless Suzuki and especially happy to be moving back into the Superbike class where I certainly have some unfinished business,” he said.

With the rule changes that kick in for 2008 Laverty is confident that they will have a strong package, “The new rules in the Superbike class will be in our favour as the standard GSX–R1000 package is very strong. I'm very comfortable in this all Irish team and having already tested the Superbike in road racing trim earlier in the year, I'm now looking forward to running it at the Sunflower Trophy in a couple of weeks time.”

Laverty admitted he did have other offers, “Staying with TAS Racing was a relatively easy decision and although I had other offers, getting the chance to work directly with a manufacturer in British Superbikes was too good to turn down. Suzuki have shown great faith in me and I'm also flattered that they have decided to reproduce a replica GSX–R600 in Relentless Suzuki colours on the strength of our championship success,” he concluded.