Aruba Ducati’s Scott Redding grazed the pole record during his time attack laps on the second day of WorldSBK testing at Aragon - a track he describes as one of his weaker circuits.
The former MotoGP rider was only 0.013s off Jonathan Rea’s outright record after slotting in a Pirelli qualifier, setting a 1’48.780 as he began to push at end of the day.
“We’re getting closer to the race now so we start to pick up the pace a little bit and start to push a little bit more in testing,” said Redding, speaking at the track.
“I like to do my work step at a time, try and improve our areas and then at the end of the test we can push. So, in general, I was quite happy with the bike and the improvements we made through the middle of the day. I was a bit faster with the SC0 tyre, and I felt good with the X even bit faster than when I was here for the race. And then we put a Q to see everything at the end because I need to also stay in the zone for qualifying laps and we improve again.
“So I’m really happy because this is one of my worst tracks and the good thing is, at least Rinaldi, who is my teammate was quite good here last year so I have some kind of reference so the team did good, was not an easy two days because sometimes you go in circles to try and find the area to improve but it’s not as easy so the team did a great job and I’m very happy.”
Redding would have preferred the entire grid to be at the test as he could measure himself against the whole grid but had to content himself with satellite Ducatis and a full complement of Yamahas.
“It’s a shame that the other manufacturers are not here because for me it’s always good to test with the best of the best guys so you know where you stand, but from the pace that we see we’re strong.
“This was one of my weaker tracks last year you know it was not terrible but it was not easy for me to make the results I made so I think we made some improvements, also in the sectors that I struggled last year and that was our focus about us and improving myself, compared with myself so it’s a shame they’re not there but we did work that we think is good and we see later in the season.”
