Scott Redding: ‘I expected it to be easier, I should be at the front’

After switching from Ducati to BMW, Redding’s 2022 season got off to a dreadful start as he went from competing for wins to struggling to finish in the points with the German manufacturer at the WorldSBK season-opener in Aragon. 

As he became more comfortable with the M 1000 RR and crucially BMW finding improvements to its machine, Redding showed once again that he can fight the likes of world champion Alvaro Bautista, Toprak Razgatlioglu and Jonathan Rea.

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Podiums at Donington Park, Most and Magny-Cours followed a difficult opening few rounds, before a solid end to the season from Redding helped move BMW ahead of Honda in the Manufacturers’ championship.

However, Redding was used to winning races prior to his switch to BMW, which is why the word ‘challenging’ was used to describe his latest season. 

Redding summed up his season by telling WorldSBK.com: "Challenging! I feel that I expected it to be a little bit easier this year. I had some better times and I had some harder times, so it made it challenging in general, and also, me coming from another bike that has a completely different engine to this bike was also challenging." 

"The best moment was probably getting on the podium in Most because I really felt like I could challenge the front guys there. 

"I had the opportunity to be there with them and I just felt good with the bike and to fight at the front where I feel I should be."

Like Redding, Rea also had his least successful season since 2020, although six wins and another 24 podiums showed just how well Rea still performed.

Yet, it wasn’t enough to keep pace with Razgatlioglu and in particular Bautista, as Rea finished over 100 points down on the latter. 

While Redding and Rea spent a lot less time battling one-another on-track in 2022, the BMW rider couldn’t hide his surprise at the lack of race wins for Rea, despite awcknoledging that the Kawasaki rider was riding to the limit. 

Redding added: "Biggest surprise was to see Jonathan [Rea] not winning as much as he used to even though he;s riding just as hard. 

"But it’s maybe not enough at this moment to win races. It’s quite a surprise."