Octo Pramac’s Scott Redding is still struggling for rear grip on his Ducati at the Phillip Island MotoGP test and a lack of confidence in corner entry with the Desmosedici resulted in two crashes today.
The British star finished down in 20th place and 2.258s off the pace of Marc Marquez but also behind Loris Baz on the Esponsorama-backed GP15 that Redding had last year.
“Braking into turn 6, just the first initial touch locked the front. Then I managed to save it, but I had too much speed to continue the corner. So I broke again and lost the front. It was quite strange because it wasn’t really much different, just maybe the wind got under there or maybe something on the track,” said Redding, speaking at the track.
Redding had engine trouble after lunch when one of his motors stopped early on.
“I went out again after lunch and the bike stopped - just blew the engine. It just stopped and that was that. It went pop. Went out again and the tyre felt really shit. So I had a really shit run of laps - in-out, in-out, no rhythm. Then I’ve been struggling a lot for rear grip on entry, turn into the corner and the rear comes around off-gas.
“That happened quite big a few times and I lost a lot of confidence, so it was quite difficult afternoon to be honest. Every time we tried to go faster I just lost the rear grip and we don’t really know why.”
