Phillip Island, Australia – 18 October 2015: Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS rider Scott Redding finished a pulsating Australian Grand Prix just over a second outside of the top 10 at Phillip Island this afternoon.

The 22-year-old brilliantly recovered from a poor start to surge through the field, with Redding expertly overtaking Alvaro Bautista, Jack Miller, Danilo Petrucci and Andrea Dovizioso.

He then hunted down Bradley Smith and Aleix Espargaro in the battle for ninth, but his early charge meant he’d had to push his asymmetric front Bridgestone tyre harder than expected.

With front grip fading just as he looked poised to close in on Smith and Espargaro, he wisely settled for a seventh successive point scoring finish in 11th.

Redding also took great heart from finishing just over 20 seconds off race winner Marc Márquez, which was the closest he’s been to the lead group in 2015.

Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS now head back to the Far East for the final round of the three back-to-back flyaway races, to battle the intense heat and humidity at the Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang.

Scott Redding: 11th
“I got a terrible start and the Honda is not an easy bike to get off the line because it can wheelie a lot as you go through the gears. Being as tall I am my weight is higher, so I can’t move my body forward enough to put weight on the front. At the start it was a difficult fight with Bautista because he used the soft rear tyre and it gave him an advantage in the early stages. I couldn’t get into a rhythm behind him and once I did get by I then had a battle with Petrucci and Dovizioso, and that Ducati is unbelievably fast down the straight, making it very hard to pass. Once I got in front of them I managed to start catching Bradley but I used too much front tyre earlier in the race while fighting through and it dropped off a fair bit towards the end. I’m happy with the race though because normally the satellite Yamahas normally drop me and I was as close to the lead group as I have been all year. We can take some positives into next weekend in Malaysia, which is a track I’ve ridden this bike on in testing at the start of the year. So it will be interesting to see where we have come from since then. It is a tough race with the heat and humidity but, hopefully, I can make it back into the top 10.”
 
Michael Bartholemy: Team Principal
“It was a positive race for Scott because his rhythm was certainly fast enough to challenge for the top 10, and as always that was our pre-race mission. We only missed out because of another bad start. That was the only negative point of the race because it meant he got held up in the first few laps when I’m sure he could have gone with Smith. I’m happy with his pace in the second half of the race and we can look forward to him being competitive next weekend in what will undoubtedly be the most demanding conditions of the season. We have some data from pre-season testing at Sepang, so I am looking forward to a strong weekend there.”