Scott Redding’s time in MotoGP, what happened?
Scott Redding spent 5 seasons in MotoGP which were majorly underwhelming, we looked at what happened.
Scott Redding is fast, that is a FACT, spending the 2013 Moto2 season battling tooth and nail with Pol Espargaro for the Moto2 title, with three rounds to go Redding led the championship standings by 10 points over Pol Espargaro, however, crashed during qualifying at Phillip Island and broke his wrist meaning he could not race, just a week later in Japan, Redding collided with Tito Rabat’s motorbike which was sliding off of the track, the race was stopped and restarted without Redding. Espargaro would then win the race and the title with Redding losing 50 points over two races.
Redding would then move to the MotoGP class on the underpowered Honda Honda RCV1000R, he was consistent and impressed many with a debut 7th placed finish which he would match in Phillip Island, finishing 12th overall in the standings with 81 points. The British rider would make comments about the RCV1000R throughout the season as it was underpowered and nothing like it’s RC213V counterpart, so, in a fairytale move, the Marc VDS MotoGP team was formed with Redding for 2015.
During the pre-season, Redding felt he could battle for the top 5 in the MotoGP class on the factory spec Honda RC213V, however, this was not to be, the bike and team did not perform well and followed this trend in the following years with riders such as Tito Rabat, Jack Miller and Franco Morbidelli. The bike would be fast but nowhere near fast enough to be consistent which hampered Redding throughout the season, Redding did, however, take a podium at Misano after crashing early on in the race. Redding would finish in 13th overall in the standings, a place worse than the season before, despite a huge 16 point haul at Misano.
Redding celebrating his debut MotoGP podium
For 2016 and 2017, Redding would move to the Pramac Ducati squad, yet once again would struggle to ride the bike, fighting with it every round over the two seasons, he had problems with the tyres amongst various things with handling and tyres being the main issue, the bike was very inconsistent for Redding who struggled to tame the Ducati beast which is not something every rider can do. Many have tried and many have failed, Redding is cited as saying that the Ducati was inconsistent, running well for some rounds and not at all at others.
Redding would continue on a decline following his rookie season, finishing in 15th overall in 2016 with 74 points with a podium at Assen and 14th overall in 2017 wth just 64 points scored, Redding had lost his motivation to continue and was running out of ideas, he had no ride for 2018 once Jack Miller was confirmed at Pramac Ducati, this was until Aprilia split with Sam Lowes, opening up a spot for Redding to return to the Gresini team, albeit this time on an Aprilia.
2018 was to be Redding’s last season in the class, struggling with the Aprilia all season, publically calling the bike a “piece of s**t,” Redding took just 7 points-scoring finishes in 18 races with a best result of 11th place. The season completely zapped all motivation Redding had for racing, he hated the bike, he hated training to ride said bike and he hated racing.
Very nearly retiring from the sport completely saying, “My career was more or less finished [in 2018]. I was over it, I didn’t want to race anymore, I was 25 and thinking ‘I’m done with this sport’. It wasn’t giving me anything in my life; I didn’t feel happy and I didn’t feel like I was succeeding. I’ll try to do something else, that was my vision.
“Burnout is a good way of putting it, because there was no light at the end of the tunnel. There was no future to go forward. I was just struggling, suffering, really hating it. And it just kind of wore me down. I’d come from fighting for a world title in Moto2, which I lost due to injury. That hurt me enough, but I had a new challenge to go to MotoGP and trying to be World Champion was my goal, it’s what I believed I could do. But I just felt at the wrong place, at the wrong time from there on in. Everywhere I went to, it was not the right time. It just wore me down, knowing that there’s something that can be better, but I can’t get it.
Redding was down in the dumps about racing, feeling like there is nothing left for him, this was until he got a call from Paul Bird to ride for his BSB team, at first Redding declined it, saying the safety of the BSB tracks was not up to standard.
Paul Bird managed to change the mind of Redding with Redding signing a deal to race in BSB, dropping from MotoGP to ride in the National BSB championship, it was here that Redding found his love for racing again, winning races and eventually the title as a rookie, he was a changed man. This title enabled him to gain a seat racing for the Factory Ducati Aruba.IT WSBK squad where he has won three races and is battling with Jonathan Rea for the title.
Looking back on his time in MotoGP, it was not meant to be, however, since then, he has come into his own and really shown the doubters who Scott Redding really is and what he is about.
He has confirmed he may return to MotoGP one day but only on one condition, he is racing for the factory Ducati team…
Featured images – www.motogp.com
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