Britain’s Scott Redding was forced out of today’s Mugello MotoGP with engine problems when a battle with Bradley Smith for top independent honours looked on the cards.

Redding had got himself into seventh place but a dashful of red warning lights slowed the Octo Ducati rider and, when reduced pace failed to give any clues, he brought it back into the pits. It is the third mechanical failure for the Gloucestershire man this season.

“From one side I am happy with my performance, in the begininning we were quite good, then we had a water problem. The bike didn’t stop but there a lot of red lights and I didn’t want to blow the engine as it was a fresh one, and that was it,” said Redding, speaking at the track.

“I am a bit disappointed as we had a good weekend. A few ups and downs but more ups than downs. I felt a but edgy with the hard front in the race, I hadn’t done many laps on it but I had to use it. I felt I was taking a good amount of risk to stay where I was. There was movement but I thought it was working.

“When the red lights started to come on, I lost a bit of concentration. I did three laps with the lights on, slowing up to see if I could recover it somehow but in the end they came on fully, so I came back and saved the engine.

“It’s not done on purpose, I’m not mad at them and it’s not like the fucking wheels fell out, that would be a different story. It’s a mechanical thing, I have ad it three or four times. I believe this was a race we could have battled for first satellite.”