Author: Scott Redding Posted: 11 Nov 2015
Scott Redding has just finished his second season in the premier class of motorcycle racing, MotoGP. Next year he moves from Honda to Ducati machinery, and experienced his new bike for the first time during a test at Valencia this week. He checked in with Bike Social to let us know how he got on…
Hi guys,
I was really looking forward to my first run on the Ducati in this week’s test and I wasn’t disappointed. Things wentreally well on Tuesday, I settled into the Octo Pramac team really nicely and love the GP15! There’s more power, but you can use it! It’s unbelievable. Everyone calls this bike a beast but it’s actually quite nice.
Wednesday was also quite good, we tried a few more things on the bike and tried some different linkage. At first I thought it was better but then I put the new tyre in and couldn’t improve the lap time. When we went back to the old linkage I went faster with the new tyre so we’re slowly starting to cross off the things that are good for me and not good for me.
In general, the feeling isn’t bad, we improved the front grip which I was struggling with on Tuesday but again when I push to go faster I have a similar kind of feeling. It’s a bit strange, sometimes you get like a skidding on the front and other times it’s just hard to put the bike in, it depends how you are loading the tyre.
We have just one bike so we’re just improving the areas we’re weak in at the moment. We’ve been sitting on the bike and stuff like that to get comfortable and trying things like the linkage. Today I was probably riding to 80% of my limit because I have one bike so if I go and destroy it I’m gonna miss a day testing or at least lose half a day. At the moment it’s important for me to get laps under my belt and try to understand the bike. When I go for the lap time I do want to go in hard but I’m just trying to be on the safe side. When I have two bikes and know a bit more I’ll be able to push harder.
I put 27 laps in on one tyre and from the fastest lap to the end was just 0.9 seconds so the tyre wear is quite good!
圈时间明智我喜欢也许两届ree tenths faster, which I think I could have done if we hadn’t changed the linkage, but in general I’m quite happy. All the time I was alone, I didn’t really follow anyone so for me to end up on the bike and do it myself is a good way to work and then each test we’ll try and improve and get closer and closer.
There’s not one thing I’d change. Everything in every area is better for my perspective and I think I’m going to have a good season. All the guys are great and they work together really well. I’ve got good communication with Giacomo, my crew chief, already and the feeling with the bike is good too.
Getting laps on the bike is always important and our next test is in Jerez at the end of the month. To go to there for a three-day test will be nice. We have so many days testing and I said I’d rather do them at the beginning of the year so I can try and understand the bike more and the character of how it reacts. It’ll be good to go to a different circuit. We’ve just been here for a race weekend with the Bridgestone and for me I’ve had a lot of change, bike, tyres, electronics, team so it’ll be nice to start fresh after a bit of rest.
Why not drop by and see me on the Bennetts stand at Motorcycle Live on Saturday 28thNovember?
Cheers,
Scott!
