Ducati duo’s dire dirty weekend
Redding and Rinaldi haemorrhage points at disastrous British round of WSB
The whole paddock knew Donington would be a damage limitation exercise for Ducati. After all, the Italians haven’t won there since racing the 1098 with Carlos Checa a full decade ago. However, nobody can afford an ‘off’ weekend when you’re trying to challenge for a title and that’s not to mention the massive threat now presented by new series leader Toprak Razgatlioglu.
It seemed almost unbelievable that Michael Ruben Rinaldi could go from two wins and a second place at Misano to 12th, 10th and 8th at Donington. It almost felt like Ducati had given up even before travelling, as shown in their riders’ body language when asked about the UK track after the previous races in Italy. Whether walking around the paddock at Donington or on the track, Scott Redding seemed either a lost soul or frustrated – a far cry from BSB 2019 when he won all five races he contested at the venue.
It’s a fact that some bikes work better at some circuits than others. The problem for Ducati is that their V4 Panigale has such a narrow operating window and is so sensitive to setup changes that it’s either fantastic or disastrous… and when the field is as bunched as it now is, with emerging threats from BMW plus the likes of Garrett Gerloff and Leon Haslam, it results in a drastic haemorrhaging of points to Jonathan Rea and Razgatlioglu. At Donington, Ducati plummeted from leading the Manufacturers’
Championship to third place. Redding is the darling of the crowd and received massive trackside support but across the weekend he lost another 21 points to the championship leader after failing to finish race one and not scoring in the Superpole race, before salvaging fourth in race two and now finds himself 66 points behind after 12 races. Were the mindgames which occurred during his Sunday interviews masking a hint of desperation? “There’s a lot more points available here than in MotoGP,”
Redding commented. “You can almost recover that in one weekend, if they have a disaster and you have a great weekend. Sixty-six points looks big. From what I’ve heard and what I could see, Jonathan made a mistake under pressure from Toprak. What’s going to happen now? Maybe if I’m not there… I’ll be there to pick up the pieces. But somebody else is ruffling Jonathan’s feathers. He also made a mistake at Misano and didn’t win any races. He’s under pressure – it won’t be easy.”
‘You can almost recover it in one weekend’ SCOTT REDDING