Scott Redding believes Kyle Ryde battle “sparked” him to Snetterton BSB podium finish

Scott Redding was happy with his podium finish, but frustrated not to have got his final lap battle with Bradley Ray underway before the first British Superbikes race at Snetterton was red flagged.

Speaking to British Superbikes after the race, the Hager PBM rider felt that he had been missing the pace he had shown in FP1, so was happy to be in what was initially a lead six:

“Keeping it entertaining, baby! That’s what it feels like out there. I just haven’t had the one lap pace apart form FP1, for some reason.

I don’t know really what happened and I just deteriorated as the weekend’s gone on. But I knew I’d be strong in the race, like, most of the time I can come stronger if I feel good with the bike.

Like, fitness and strength, everything is always like - there - so I’ve got that in my pocket - it feels like also, maybe also tyre management,.”

The Ducati rider then explained that he had felt ignited by his fight to pass fellow podium finisher Kyle Ryde in the race, adding:

“Then I just felt racy again, which was nice, a little bit like, not sure after the qualifying, I wasn’t really fired up.

Kind of hard to get in that rhythm, but in the race me and Kyle had a bit of a battle and it kind of sparked me up - I was like ‘oh, now we’re racing’, like, this is good.

Managed to come through the pack. Not Easy. Obviously longer laps here, compared to Knockhill. So like we were saying before, it’s like eight laps to go, and you think it’s time to go and then you’ve only done two laps and it feels like you’ve done six.”

Redding had done all the hard work to feature at the front, when he was in behind Max Cook, who was fighting with race winner Bradley Ray, as the bimota rider experienced a technical issue with his bike directly in front of the number 45. Redding explained how that left him with work to do to bridge the gap to Ray all over again:

“Then Max had the issue, and we got a bit close, between me and him. You know, I did roll off quite a lot ‘cause I’d rather lose the time than take the chance putting us down.

Obviously Brad got quite a nice little buffer, which - he was lucky - because I was coming at the end of that race and I could see him pushing and I was pushing - the more I was pushing I could see, the more he was trying to respond. So like, it wasn’t easy for me to catch him.”

Redding had the gap visibly down by the final lap, and looked to be lining up a push for the win, when the red flag came back out, this time for a blow up on Christian Iddon’s Yamaha, calling the result with Redding still in second:

“I took a lot of risk in a few places, and, you know, if I want to try and win this championship I’m going to have to do rides like that. It makes me feel good at the same time and I was there and I said to myself I get to Brad at turn two there , I got three chances to have a go and this is going to be an epic end to the race - and the red flag came out.”

Redding was pleased with his progress, having not raced at Snetterton last season when he made his BSB return - the rounds were switched so it was before his Knockhill comeback, at the time to replace the injured Glenn Irwin at PBM - with his last appearance at the Norwich track coming in his 2019 title winning year:

“So it was good fun  - you know I can’t take anything away -Brad’s very good around here, only thing I noticed that my weak point I’ve had all weekend was not my weak point in the race - so it kind of took me by surprise and I had other weak points - I’ve not rode with anyone over the weekend, really - so it was good to get that information after not being here for seven years.”

Redding is well placed to go one better as he is on provisional pole for the sprint race to start the Sunday BSB action at Snetterton, having set the fastest lap in race one.