Redding: We need to find our own with the bike

Scott Redding had a torrid time in Qatar with the Marc VDS rider struggling throughout the weekend with his corner entry speed. Redding eventually finished 13th and to be just 1.5s ahead of Hector Barbera’s Open Ducati illustrated how difficult a race he had.

Having spent the winter working on his riding style and trying to learn how to ride the Honda the opening race of the year seemed to arrive too early for the Marc VDS team as they adapt to running in the premier class for the first time. For Redding, who had been pleased with the work undertaken in testing, the result showed that the team has plenty of room for improvement.

Far from shying away from that work Redding however stressed that finding a direction to work in for the next two races will be key for his crew because his style of riding, and sheer physical size, means that he stresses the bike differently:

“We need to just find out own way,” said Redding. “I’m bigger than the other riders, so making the bike a lot stiffer might help. And if it doesn’t, then maybe we play with geometry. This weekend we’ve been doing a lot of changing and not noticing many differences. Maybe it was the circuit conditions and in Texas it might be better.”

Qatar is a circuit that historically has seen teams make drastic changes to setups and improve the feel but not the laptime. The truer test for everyone will be in Austin for round two.