Scott Redding has admitted his relief after taking his first Bennetts British Superbike Championship race win at Donington Park today – but is already thinking about winning again tomorrow.

The Be Wiser Ducati man took the lead with just over four laps to go after messing up the start and had to play catch-up during today’s 26-lap race.

Just 24 hours after the former MotoGP rider told Bikesport News how he ‘needed’ the win here, Redding silenced his critics as he took the honours by almost a second over McAMS Yamaha’s Tarran Mackenzie.

“It is a relief, there’s a lot of pressure to win coming from MotoGP with a good bike a good team, everyone’s been expecting it,” he said. “I said before the season I’m quite happy with that pressure, but that first race at Silverstone kicked us off on the wrong foot a little, it was a weird kind of result there so I kind of doubted myself a little bit, I need a little bit of time.

I was a bit fragile coming into this year, just trying to build myself up. At Oulton I managed to make a good result considering I’ve never been there and that gave me confidence coming into somewhere I know and I felt I learnt something on how to ride this type of bike on these circuits.”

Redding admits he feared his race was over before it had really begun after a bad start.

“Earlier on, I’d messed up Q2 and I just thought ‘sort yourself out Scott’. Then I messed up the start a little bit and I thought ‘you’re just trying to make it hard for yourself, you’ve got the chance to make it easier and you’re making it harder.’

“I kept digging in and then Josh crashed and it made a gap and I thought ‘come on’. I got my head down, tried to be smooth and got going. I just felt my pace come later in the race, when the tyres were moving more. I had a lot more feeling coming back to me.”

With the first win box now ticked, Redding hopes to carry the momentum into tomorrow in search of more of the same.

“I said coming here I need to win but I didn’t expect it. But there was something inside of me that knew that I could do it and that’s something that really will kick-start me now going into tomorrow.

“I’ve done it, I’ve won it now I know what to do. I know what it feels like, I know what it’s like to lead and I know I can mess the start and still win.

“I can go to bed tonight thinking ‘right, I’ve won a race. It wasn’t the easiest of races and I won it’. I know how I can make it easier in future and I know I definitely have the potential to do it.”