After starting so well at the Motorland Aragon WorldSBK test recently, Jerez was another good experience for Aruba Ducati newboy Scott Redding in readiness for 2020.

He was inside the top five at Jerez, not leading in the times, but his plan to jump up on a qualifying rear tyre was stopped short by a late oil spill, and attendant cement dust used to clear it up.

After so many hours on his 2019 Ducati BSB bike and now several on his 2020 WorldSBK version, Redding has been able to make some judgements, especially regsrding electronics.

“The bike is exactly the same, just the exhaust system and the different fuel they can use. They have different, bigger, tyres sizes here, which give you a bit more grip and support," Redding told bikesportnews.com.

"So I feel quite comfortable with the bike. Going to BSB and not having any electronics at all helped me as a rider. I really think it was good. I probably should have done something like that earlier in my career. Riding a 600 you do not need electronics, then going to MotoGP, it probably just helped me to understand throttle management a bit more. So I was grateful to have that year and understand those things and then come back and get the electronics.”

Compared to his five years of MotoGP experience, Redding was asked how the WorldSBK electronics shape up now he has had real experience of them.

“The electronics are the same but different,” stated the 2019 BSB champion. “It is one of them things where if the bike works well you do not seem to need to use so many electronics. That’s seems to be the case.

The Panigale V4R is working really well so I do not need to use or rely on them, but I do need to use them in certain areas. The position we are in to use them is good. When I was in MotoGP in the past I was always struggling with rear grip and some other issues, so I was trying to rely on the electronics but you won’t be fast that way. The position we are in now is good and I can use the electronics to their full potential.”

Despite some frequent red flags at Jerez, Redding saw it is a good sign off to 2019’s track action.

“It has been really good and great to have two good days, quality track time, but quite a few red flags,” conceded Redding. “It is what it is and we are happy to have that time because it is important for me and important for Ducati, to get those things crossed of the list and now we can go away for the winter and cook up a master plan to come back with something a little bit more strong.

"The base is not bad, I just feel we are not getting the full potential that we can get. But I believe the bike has it. It was good to have that bonding with myself and Ducati and understand what each other want - and know which direction to work in - ready for the 2020 season.”

Redding did try to get a Q tyre run at the end but found his final pace affected by the infamous late oil spill.

“I got a Q in but we had oil up into turn one so we had to stay a little bit off the line, and that probably affected it a tenth, or a tenth and a half. It was OK because we still had good clear track for the rest of it, which was quite good. I had quite a clean day today, actually.

" I tried everything I wanted to except a long run. We are quite happy with that and we figured a few things out we ne dot work on for next year, we are quite happy with that. We ae quite happy with the test but we did struggle quite a lot, to be honest with you, we did struggle with rear grip.

"It became one of those things that was never getting better, never getting better, but just towards the end of the day we managed to make a change that actually did help it. So we know now what we kind of need to do for he future. It was good to have that to take back to the Ducati guys.”

Redding also had the chance to try out some new tyres on his four-cylinder Panigale.

“We tried a coupe of tyres for Pirelli on the rear and we tried a couple of fronts yesterday,” said Redding. “A good thing to test because we are always trying to develop for the future. For myself we were trying to find a bit more rear grip. It is something we have struggled with since yesterday here in Jerez.

"At the end we managed to find something to help a little bit. We are still not where we would like to be, but we were making progress, which is good. I need to work a bit more with electronics, as well as the chassis, because obviously it is new to me in Superbike electronics. But in general I was quite happy by the end of the tests. We tested quite a few things, which was good to got over this year and tick or cross off the list for next year.”