Scott Redding has described his feeling aboard the BMW M 1000 RR he will campaign in the 2022 WorldSBK Championship as ‘very different’ as he got his first taste of the machine during testing in Valencia.
The British rider is one of the big movers over the winter after being replced at Aruba.it Ducati by Alvaro Bautista, Redding opting to join the Shaun Muir Racing-prepared factory BMW Motorrad squad alongside Michael van der Mark.
A significant change for the ex-MotoGP rider after spending three seasons (one in BSB, two in WorldSBK) aboard the Ducati Panigale V4 R, Redding now faces a challenge to bring the inline-four BMW up to speed.
Dubbing the M 1000 RR - which made its debut in 2021 - as the ‘black widow’, the private test was a chance for Redding to get to grips with the bike, with his comments limited to reaction on social media in which he says it is ‘very different feeling but it will soon feel like home. We [are] here to work and progress’.
Redding’s switch to BMW comes after a season in which he proved a frequent match for the title rivals Toprak Razgatlioglu and Jonathan Rea, scoring seven wins and 23 podiums en route to third in the standings.
However, that wasn’t enough for him to retain his ride with Ducati, who will instead lead with another ex-MotoGP rider in Bautista, who rejoins the team with which he won 14 races in his inaugural WorldSBK campaign in 2019.
Redding faces a tough task though after BMW failed to make a noticeable improvement on his 2020 WorldSBK campaign despite developing and homologating the more powerful and more tech savvy BMW M 1000 RR to replace the S 1000 RR.
Even so, BMW did score its first victory since 2013 after van der Mark conquered wet conditions in the Portimao Superpole Race.
