REDDING TESTS V4 PANIGALE
Ducati star admits he has lots to learn,
Scott Redding has says he has a ‘lot to learn’ after getting his first taste of the Ducati V4 R superbike he’ll ride in next year’s Bennetts British Superbike championship.
The British rider makes the switch from MotoGP to BSB in 2019, but hadn’t sat on a superbike until he jumped on the World Superbike-spec Panigale V4 R last week. Redding will race alongside Josh Brookes in the Be Wiser Ducati PBM effort, but while the factory-backed BSB squad await their V4 Rs to arrive, they were loaned two World Superbike-spec machines at Jerez. The only difference between the World Superbike-spec bike and the bikes Redding and Brookes will campaign is that the WSB machine
‘Every time I go out on the bike I’m feeling more comfortable’
features Magneti Marelli electronics instead of MoTeC. In order to mimic BSB regulations, Ducati Corse engineer Giovanni Crupi (Redding’s 2019 crew chief) turned off all of the rider aids. “Every time I go out on the bike I’m feeling more comfortable, trusting the bike and the tyres,” he told MCN. “I had a couple of big moments with no electronics when the tyre dropped! I need to learn that. The front tyre is OK, but I have a vague feeling as I’m used to the hard front tyre you have in MotoGP so I’m attacking like that at the minute and I’m not sure if it can hold it.
“I’m trying to make small steps, work with the feel of minimal electronics. I feel good, I feel happy on the bike, the bike is working like a bike which is good but I’m just settling into it.” Team-mate Josh Brookes came at it from a different perspective, moving from the Yamaha YZF-R1 Superbike to the Panigale V4 R.
“It might sound strange, but it feels like a MotoGP bike,” Brookes said. “It’s super-stiff and precise for a superbike. It’s one of the biggest steps I have felt in the change of a bike’s character than any move I have made in my career.”