WorldSBK Phillip Island: Redding ‘got to accept BMW weak point’

A rather resigned Scott Redding heads for the first WorldSBK race of 2023 with his ROKiT BMW Motorrad at Phillip Island this weekend.

Having struggled for the majority of last season, and despite the promise of an upgraded M1000RR, Redding remained in the lower echelons of the timesheets across pre-season testing with over a second to bridge between himself and the, now dominant, bike he left in 2021.

“The first couple of tests were quite difficult and even here at Phillip Island it was kind of hard,” Redding admitted ahead of Australia’s opening round. “Just trying to find the feeling again with the new bike was difficult. Obviously, with the weather conditions, it also puts another spanner into the mix and I kind of take it very gently.

“I get frustrated and I’m like, ‘it’s only testing. Don’t worry, the race is coming. It’s always different’.

“We’ve tried a lot of things with the bike - on electronics and set up and stuff like that- but to be honest, we kind of came back to what our base was end of last year, which there’s good and bad. It means the progress was not as much as we want but we have the good package of last year. So with the updates we have with the fairing, engine and stuff like that it’s obviously going to help us especially for us in the hotter conditions. Overall, just happy to get underway. Get the testing done. For me, I live for the racing so this is more motivating for me.

“I’d probably say the aero package that we got [is the most positive]” the British rider continued on 2023 developments. “This just mainly helps us for the engine temperature because last year I suffered a lot in the hot races with engine overheating. There wasn’t really anything we could do so I knew when we had hotter races,