Scott Redding: ‘It’s frustrating, I want him to understand for safety reasons’
Speaking about the overtake, the 2020 WorldSBK runner-up was not only frustrated by Razgatlioglu’s late move, but also voiced concerns from a safety point of view.
"[It was] more than close, I would say. It’s frustrating a little bit because I want him to understand, for a safety reason, where the line is on overtakes," Redding told WorldSBK.com.
"He didn’t make the apex of the corner. He put me completely off the track. Luckily, it was all okay, but I want to know where the limit is.
"Where is it where someone says ‘okay, this is too much’. We finished on the podium but I also had to battle with Jonathan [Rea].
"It was really all go. I was really hungry for that podium and I was not going to leave anything out on track."
Redding, who delivered arguably the ride of the year aboard his M 1000 RR, was in contention for what would have been a first WorldSBK win with BMW until the final few laps.
After losing time in the early laps due to battling Axel Bassani and Andrea Locatelli, Redding closed down the leading trio of Razgatlioglu, Jonathan Rea and Alvaro Bautista, before proceeding to make overtakes on Razgatlioglu and Rea in back-to-back laps.
Although the BMW rider fell short of catching Bautista for the race lead, the British rider looked set for a comfortable second place before Razgatlioglu hauled him in with two laps remaining.
As he tried to set up a move on the penultimate lap, Razgatlioglu was unable to use his incredible late braking into turn one due to the BMW having greater top speed, thus an inventive move elsewhere on the Czech circuit was needed to be made.
And that’s exactly what the Pata Yamaha rider tried at turn 15, but as he lunged to the inside of Redding, it quickly became apparent that the two riders were heading for a possible collision.
That was until Redding picked up his M 1000 RR and subsequently had to run off-track, which then put him under intense pressure from Rea for P3.
“I nearly crashed”, says the WorldSBK champion
While the overtake was clean from the perspective that no contact was made, Razgatlioglu almost lost the front of his R1, which would have likely ended with both riders crashing out.
Razgatlioglu added: "With Scott [Redding], because I saw he was very strong in the last sector and also the second sector, I had just one chance.
"I tried. I passed him but I almost crashed, we both went a bit wide together. Anyway, we finished on the podium and we take good points in the championship."
With the battle between Razgatlioglu, Redding and Rea showing shades of last year, the difference this time around was that it was for second and third, Bautista was able to take another dominant victory at a circuit where it appeared unlikely that would be the case.
During free practice Razgatlioglu, Rea, Redding and even team-mate Michael Ruben Rinaldi seemed more comfortable aboard their Superbike machines, but when it counted most, Bautista was able to deliver once again.
