Scott Redding: I was worried
Scott Redding suffered his most difficult race as a Pramac Ducati rider at Jerez, the Englishman languishing down in 19th place as he battled chronic wheelspin.
Redding's best lap was two-seconds off the fastest by race winner Valentino Rossi and he admitted to being spooked by memories of his Argentina tyre failure.
"No wrong choice," insisted Redding, who was one of four riders to pick the softest rear compound. "The tyre was falling apart. I probably shouldn't say it but it is the truth and it's cost me another race.
"The problem was I felt something wasn't right and I didn't want to keep pushing and then the same thing happen as in Argentina. We just checked the tyre and it started to delaminate, blister, chunks coming out.
"So we need to fix something or they need to fix something. It just didn't work from the word go and it got worse and worse. The spin was quite aggressive, but what I felt most was that even in a straight line it was spinning. Up into fifth gear it was still spinning.
"And when I exit the slow corners and load the tyre hard, I felt like the tyre was squashing and almost like the rim was touching the tyre. So when I saw the state of the tyre - it was the pieces hitting, missing, hitting, missing.
"So I was worried. I'm not going to lie. The two fast corners here I could feel it spinning and I knew it wasn't going to be good. But I gave it the benefit of the doubt and kept going to the end and it did stay together. There are pieces missing. But I don't honestly think it would have lasted another five laps."
Redding believes he has been the hardest hit by the change to the stiffer construction rear tyres, introduced following his incident in Argentina.
"They made a big change that's affected us the most to be honest. Ducati are struggling but the other guys manage to find a bit somewhere. So we need try and figure out something with the bike if it helps.
"But you know some of the other guys were spinning a lot more [than me] and we spent all weekend trying to recover spin with electronic, riding style. I daren't think what would have happened if we didn't.
"I'm not just blaming the tyre, but there's nothing I could do. We need to sit down with [Michelin] and Ducati and decide what to do to move forward."
Responding to Redding's comments, a Michelin spokesman told Crash.net:
"There were some tears on Scott's tyre. Nothing any bigger than a coin and the wear on the tyre was no more extreme than we saw on Marc Marquez's winning tyre in Austin. As far as we are concerned there was no safety issue with the tyre at all and the amount of wear was expected after 27 laps in 40-plus degrees around this circuit on a soft tyre.
"Regarding the amount of spinning in a straight line, which Jorge [Lorenzo] also mentioned, this is something we need to look into. For example, whether it was an amalgam of the track - because the riders have been saying all weekend that there is very little grip - and the increase in race day heat. But equally it's something we have to learn from.
"One big positive this weekend is that we brought five different tyres here - all five were used in the race, in various combinations, and unfortunately Alvaro [Bautista] fell but he was the only faller. And when you compare that with Moto2 and Moto3 it's a good indicator of how well the tyres did work."
