The 2022 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship has a different challenge for Scott Redding (BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team), with the British rider’s development project with the BMW M1000RR continuing after the Pirelli Emilia-Romagna Round in Italy. The Misano World Circuit “Marco Simoncelli” was tricky for Redding in 2021 onboard Ducati machinery as he took three fourth places, whilst in 2022, he managed a double top ten in the long races and was the first BMW home in all three encounters.

After missing much of FP1 with a technical problem, Redding bounced back to be on the fringes of the top ten, although his race pace had him in the battle for P7 – P9 throughout the weekend. However, continuous struggles in getting off the line cleanly meant that by the time he fought his way back into the top ten on both occasions, he was already too distant to his competitors.

In Race 1, from P9 on the grid, he dropped to 13^th before climbing back up the order and into the top ten on Lap 14. He stayed there until the end of the race, with rookie Iker Lecuona (Team HRC) just over six seconds ahead of him. For Race 2, Redding started in P11 but dropped down to 16^th, before a tenacious fightback through the field saw him back inside the top ten on Lap 6. After Xavi Vierge (Team HRC) crashed, Redding was ninth, but it was another lonely race, as he finished 9.2 seconds ahead of Loris Baz and 6.1 seconds behind Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK).

Speaking at the close of the weekend, Redding cited that getting off the line is still proving to be a difficulty with the BMW M1000RR: “The biggest problem for me were the starts and trying to get off the start line; we still need to understand the right way to make the clutch work to get off the start. Every time, I dropped back from P9 to P15 and it’s too hard to come back through. The positive is that all weekend, we showed pretty good race pace, not to fight for the podium but for where we feel we can be. We showed we were capable to be around P7 – P9, we’re just not there in the mix. For me, learning and adapting, this was a positive part of the weekend as last year, this was a difficult place for BMW and so are the hot conditions. In general, I can go away quite happy but there’s still a lot of work to do.”

When asked about what he hopes for between now and the UK Round, Redding stated: “Just some improvements with the bike, especially with the clutch, because the performance is there. Going to Donington Park, it’s a home race for me and I enjoy the circuit a lot anyway. It’d be great to just enjoy and hopefully the bike works quite well there and if we can continue the form we’ve been building, this is definitely good. Hopefully the sun is shining, and I look forward to seeing all the fans there.”

Between Misano and Donington Park however, BMW Motorrad Motorsport Director, Marc Bongers, confirmed during a pitlane interview in FP2 at Misano, that the team would be testing at Donington Park at the end of June: “We have a couple of spots reserved at Donington Park at the end of June. We have some updates on the electronics and the engine, and we’re going to do some chassis work which is good for the next round at Donington Park.”

Picture credit to aleximage.com

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