Gerloff: “No love lost with Scott, but hard to 100% blame him”

Garrett Gerloff has refused to blame Scott Redding for their collision in the Superpole Race at Magny-Cours, despite the 2020 WorldSBK runner-up receiving a Long Lap penalty.
Scott Redding, BMW WorldSBK Magny-Cours 2023
Scott Redding, BMW WorldSBK Magny-Cours 2023

The Bonovo Action BMW rider put forward his best showing of the season after claiming a maiden WorldSBK pole.

Race 1 was equally as strong, with Gerloff managing to finish fourth which is his best result of the season.

The American was then fifth in Race 2 as he came from outside the top ten to rescue a big points finish, however, it was the Superpole Race that had Gerloff wondering what could have been.

After a poor start to the lap, Gerloff, who was already pushed down the order, came to blows with fellow BMW rider Redding.

Redding went for a small gap on the inside of Gerloff before hitting the former Yamaha rider, which resulted in both men crashing out.

"We were going through Turn 8 and I didn’t feel like I was wide at all; in fact, I feel like I was more inside compared to most other laps," said Gerloff. 

"Then, before I knew it, I was on the ground with somebody else. It happened so fast for me… we were already crashing by the time I saw who it was. 

"It’s one of those things. I know he didn’t mean to; there’s no love lost and I shouldn’t have even been in that situation anyway as I went straight through Turn 6. 

"Had I been on my normal line through Turns 6 and 7 and just been doing my thing, then I wouldn’t have even seen Scott, so it’s hard to blame it 100% on him. 

"This weekend has been the best I’ve felt in a really long time and I don’t feel like I’m stretching myself, I’m just there and then I look up at the end of the session and I’m in the top two and top three. We’ve made a big step and I hope we can continue."

Garrett Gerloff, French WorldSBK, 9 September
Garrett Gerloff, French WorldSBK, 9 September

For Redding, Sunday’s double raceday was a disaster as he only crashed in Race 2 with Dominique Aegerter.

Redding received another penalty for that accident and called it a ‘strange’ weekend.

"Not my best weekend of luck," added Redding. "I felt good with the bike this weekend but I was just a little bit unlucky with a couple of crashes. 

"I don’t ever remember crashing three times in a weekend, so it was quite strange. It think because it was so close with the laps times and to get the results there is really small room for error. 

"Obviously we had a crash in race two before the re-start. The guys did a great job to get the bike ready to start the final race – it was quite damaged. 

"I felt good at the re-start and then I had two long lap penalties to do. For me it was important to do them, but I made a good start and made up positions. 

"Then I started to have some small engine troubles. I think that was from the crashes this weekend, maybe I damaged the engine. 

"It was not a good weekend for us regarding results, but we had the pace and we felt good. So we need to see if we can come back a little bit at Aragon."

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