British MotoGP: Redding third in five-lap GP125 dash

Scott Redding claimed his first 125cc World Championship podium of the season on the Blusens Aprilia in today’s five-lap dash to the flag.

Even though Redding won the race last year, he was more than happy to have secured third place this time around.

He said: “Right now I am very pleased and I think a great weight has been taken off my shoulders, because this year I have had a lot of problems with the bike, and I was losing a bit of confidence.

“This weekend the whole team has worked very well, giving 120%, as I did too, and we got a very good set up. It is nice to have got this podium finish.

“The first race did not go too badly and I got up to sixth place, and when we saw that it would rain and it was obvious that the race would be stopped and restarted, and so it was.

“We started again, five laps flat out but using my head at the beginning because it was easy to fall and in the end the it was a big thrill getting onto the podium.”

The first attempt to run the race was into the 15th of 25 laps when rain fell with Derbi’s Pol Espargaro leading by 3.2s from Aprilia rider Nicolas Terol, Marc Marquez on the KTM and Bradley Smith on the Bancaja Aspar Aprilia. Redding was off the leaders in sixth behind Julian Simon.

Marquez took the initiative in the re-start  to the flag until he crashed at the Foggy Esses on the fourth lap. Simon led the dash to the flag from Simone Corsi on a Fontana Aprilia and Redding third, just 3.07s down at the finish.

Smith was leading the first lap of the restart until he crashed at Coppice. He said: “I think the problem was basically the bad track conditions.

“I handled the situation well, but the asphalt was what too me down. I don’t think that there was anything really wrong, it was just that I went full gas.

“Everyone knows that this track sometimes has grip and sometimes doesn’t and the same thing happened to Marquez.

“The result isn’t the greatest but we were the best in qualifying and were up to fourth in the first race.”

The result is that Simon leads the championship with 154, Sergio Gadea, another failing to score today, is second on 104 and Smith is third with 98.5.

Danny Webb crashed on the first lap in a six-rider pile-up at the Foggy Esses.

1. Simon (Aprilia) 5 laps
2. Corsi (Aprilia) +0.390sec
3. Redding (Aprilia) +3.072sec
4. Terol (Aprilia) +6.209sec
5. Nakagami (Aprilia) +9.509sec
6. Salom (Aprilia) +11.211sec
7. Zanetti (Aprilia) +11.572sec
8. Aegerter (Derbi) +13.703sec
9. Vazquez (Derbi) +14.101sec
10. Espargaro (Derbi) +15.422sec

 

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