The weekend started strongly for British rookie Scott Redding (ARUBA.IT Racing – Ducati) as he topped both Free Practice sessions ahead of the Pirelli Estoril Round at the Circuito Estoril with the aim of snatching the 2020 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship out of the hands of title rival Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK).

Redding has competed on the Estoril circuit before on two different machines, having raced in 125cc and Moto2™, with Redding perhaps aided by this as he took hold of the weekend by going fastest in both 50-minute practice sessions. He posted a 1’37.181 in the morning session before improving that by three tenths in the afternoon.

The rider from Gloucester, UK, comes into the weekend with a 59-point deficit to rival Rea in the title fight and will need to win all three races to have a chance of snatching the title from Rea at the final round. The weekend could not have started better for Redding as he topped the day’s running.

Redding believes he is in a god position for this weekend, saying: “I feel good with the bike. We were trying some things in the afternoon that didn’t really work so came back which worked out well. It’s always good to start the weekend when the bike’s feeling good and you’re feeling confident. It’s a situation where everyone is in my situation at every other race, trying to learn the track, see how the tyres are, learning electronics, find the line and see the pace: this is a normal weekend for me. I feel confident.”

Rea finished the day in fourth place knowing he needs to finish inside the top 13 in Race 1 on Saturday to clinch his title. Rea said: “I never felt like I put the perfect lap together all day because we were always trying different things, but I felt quite good. This afternoon we worked on a long run to understand our pace with the race tyre. We tried the soft tyre at the end which gave some strange information, but I think we achieved our targets today.”

You can follow all the action from the Pirelli Estoril Round using the WorldSBK VideoPass!