Scott Redding: Donington “more of a circuit for me” after podium-less BSB opener

Scott Redding was off the podium in all three BSB races at the 2026 opener at Oulton Park, but the PBM Ducati rider is hopeful of better performance at Donington Park this weekend (15–17 May).

Redding was victorious at Oulton Park during last year’s October BSB round there, but his best result was fourth at this year’s opener at the Cheshire circuit while fellow Ducati rider Kyle Ryde won all three races.

The 2019 champion is sure that Donington is a circuit better suited to him, although he didn’t test there in April and he admits that other riders also excel at the Midlands track.

“Donington will be more of a circuit for me, should I say, but also the other boys are fast there: Kyle [Ryde] and Brad [Ray] are good there, Leon [Haslam] it’s like in his back garden,” Scott Redding told Crash.net after Race 3 at Oulton Park.

“I think if I can get the bike dialled in, I’ll be back at the front, but until then it’s going to be a little bit difficult. 

“Obviously, seeing Kyle dominate in the first race, to putting a statement in the last race but not running away with it as much means everyone is kind of getting to grips with what they’ve got. 

“With a little bit of time we’ll be there, so hopefully at Donington it’ll be there.”

Redding explained that the PBM team had discovered a fundamental problem with the bike setup during the Oulton Park weekend.

“We used this weekend as testing, we found that we were measuring something wrong on the suspension due to the new bike the way it was,” he said.

“But it is what it is, it just means we were in the wrong way, we were looking for a solution in the wrong area, but I’m happy.”

The PBM rider added that, if he had the bike working the way he wanted, he felt he could’ve been more competitive with the other Ducati riders at the front.

“I could see quite comfortably where they were quicker than me, but it was just down to bike setup,” he said.

“I know how to do it, I just couldn’t do it with my bike and the potential, so I just ended up fighting with the bike a lot and then the bike was getting loose underneath me. 

“Normally when you see me racing I’m quite a clean rider but this weekend I feel like I spent a lot of time correcting mistakes, and every mistake costs you one or two tenths, and then do that in a race, try to recover it – it’s quite difficult. 

“So, we know where we were losing, we’ve just got to find how we can improve that.”

Redding affirmed that it’s the bike setup that needs to improve, not his understanding of how to ride the updated Panigale.

“Not understanding the riding, just the setup,” he said.

“I know what I need to do, it’s just every time I try to do it the bike gets unsettled, so I can’t do it.

“I’m kind of stuck with the tools I can work with.”

Even without the bike working as well as it might, though, Redding was able to bring home three top-six results.

“Three stacks of points, not what I wanted, but I did the best I could do, we closed the gap every race, even if the bike was not working [at its] full potential,” he said.

“So, I’ve got to take the positives from it, obviously not as happy as I would like to be, but it’s the first round of the year at a circuit that is hard for me – a circuit that I enjoy, but it’s not one for me to normally win at; if everything is right I can, but when it’s not it’s a tough one. 

“So, we’ll look on to the next round.”