Encouraging start for Redding in Montmelo

Encouraging start for Redding in Montmelo

Montmelo, Spain – 12 June 2015: Scott Redding enjoyed a solid start to the Catalan Grand Prix weekend, with the Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS rider ending the day tenth fastest and within 1.2s of Aleix Espargaro's provisional pole position time.

Redding has had a difficult start to his first season aboard the factory Honda RC213V but the Englishman looked comfortable on track today as he completed 39 laps of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

With near perfect track conditions in the afternoon Redding was able to set his fastest time, despite a small crash entering the stadium section of the track leaving the 22 year old somewhat confused as to what had caused it. Having seen something fall off Yonny Hernandez's bike Redding took avoiding action and stayed wide on the way into the corner but lost the front on entry.

The 22-year-old Briton felt that there may have been something on the track surface that caused him to crash but, even so, his performance on the opening day was encouraging for both him and the team.

Scott Redding: 10th – 1’42.354
“The feeling with the bike is getting consistently better and our lap times are more consistent also. But we're still missing a bit to the front guys, so we're working to improve rear traction, because I can make a good lap time on a new tyre but once the grip drops off I lose about half a second and that is too much. For the race we need to find something that isn't as aggressive on the tyre. I crashed at turn nine after something came off the back of Hernandez's bike. I stayed out of the way but then I just went down. It was like there was something on the asphalt but I couldn't see anything there, so I just put it down to being a bit off line.”

Michael Bartholemy: Team Principal
“In general this wasn't a bad day. Scott had a small crash because something came off Hernandez's bike, but in the end, even though the second bike didn’t have an identical set up to his preferred machine, he still managed to get out there and set his fastest time of the weekend to go P10. This could be critical for qualifying if conditions change tomorrow, as many people are predicting.”