Scott Redding says he is heading into the 2022 WorldSBK Championship season motivated by a desire to prove he can lead BMW to success at the behest of critics who think his switch from Ducati is erroneous.
The ex-MotoGP rider joins the German manufacturer after two lucrative seasons with the factory Aruba.it Ducati team that yielded 12 wins, 37 podiums and the runners-up spot in the 2020 WorldSBK standings.
However, he comes into 2022 as something of an ‘unknown’ by virtue of BMW’s modest results since its return to the series in a full factory capacity in 2019.
Indeed, having rushed through an uprated version of its original S 1000 RR - the M 1000 RR - in 2021, though BMW enjoyed its first victory since 2013 in the weather-affected Portimao Superpole Race, it remained off the ultimate pace dictated by Yamaha, Kawasaki and Ducati.
Nevertheless, BMW is aiming higher in 2022 on the strength of its star signing in Redding - who will be partnered with Michael van der Mark - with the Shaun Muir Racing-led team promising a fix for top end power limitations.
Having campaigned V4s in MotoGP, then in BSB and WorldSBK with Ducati, Redding admits the inline-four architecture of the M 1000 RR is taking some getting used to.
“It is just different,” he told Visordown in an exclusive interview. “I don’t understand why it is different, it is a bit technical for me but it just feels so different. The biggest thing for me is that I feel fast on the bike, really fast… but I’m not really fast.
“The Ducati was more mellow so you felt slower than you actually were. It’s revving, spinning and screaming but the Ducati is quite quiet when you’re on it and it has a smooth power delivery. They are two different characters.”
“No bad feeling with Ducati WorldSBK”
Despite rumours of an acrimonious split with Ducati, Redding insists he remains on good terms with the Italian manufacturer, pointing towards a disagreement in contract terms - rather than being dropped for mounting a title bid - as the reason for his exit.
Even so, his subsequent move to BMW has raised eyebrows, drawing cynical opinions that irk Redding, yet inspire him to prove he can make the team a front runner.
“I can’t knock Ducati, in any way,” he continues. “They were really good to me, but we didn’t agree on some things for future contracts and I have other brands that are almost begging to have me and Ducati, I think, didn’t realise what it had so we didn’t agree but there was no bad feeling, no issue.
“It would be super nice to put the bike regularly on the podium and win races, that would be ideal because I have had a lot of criticism from people - which is always the same, people always want to criticise - about the change to BMW.
“So I want to stick two fingers in the air to those people and show them we can do it and that will be my main motivation this year.
“The grass always looks greener on the other side and sometimes you realise you have gold, but it is what it is. It doesn’t matter what I am on, I always have to prove myself. I have gotten as far as I have in my racing career by proving to people… in BSB people wrote me off, said it would be the end of my career and then I won and people were like s**t, the kid can ride.
“I have never had money backing me, sometimes I have to gamble - like going to BSB - but when your back is against the wall, you don’t have a choice to do what you want to do. It’s nothing new to me.”
