Donington Park WorldSBK: Scott Redding bounces back with P4 after “s**t races” led to a loss of confidence

The BMW rider endured a difficult start to the 2023 WorldSBK campaign, finishing inside the top ten on just six occasions before his home round.

But even though his performance improved dramatically during Race 2 as he beat the likes of Jonathan Rea, the weekend still started in a challenging way as a lack of pace early on meant he failed to reach the top five in both Race 1 and the Superpole Race.

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Back to his best in Race 2, Redding showed why BMW would do well to keep the British rider next season, although it’s a result he achieved without really knowing why. 

Redding said this about his performance and how he did it: "I don’t know! Honestly, the set-up of the bike is exactly the same as we had here last year. The bike is basically the same as last year, here. I don't know. 

"Maybe a little bit to do with the surface, but when you have so many bad races, it’s hard to find the rhythm to ride correctly. 

"It took me a bit of time in the races to build my momentum and understand. The grip here is good which helped. 

"But yeah it’s crazy. Just turns up and worked, so I was very happy with the weekend."

While it wasn’t evident that Redding was struggling with confidence in previous rounds, instead the BMW was pointed to as being one of the reasons why he was going through a difficult period, the 2020 runner-up said that a loss of confidence was one of the issues he was dealing with.

"A bit more confidence [led to improved result]," added Redding. "I had been having shit races and you lose confidence in yourself. Yesterday gave me confidence to come on strong at the end. 

"I knew I had to do a better Superpole Race and I got a little bit lucky with the crash from Tom [Sykes], but that made the difference for me to be able to go, find my rhythm and come on strong at the end. 

"That’s how I played it this weekend. Now we go to the next weekend. I don’t know what will turn up. Could be good, could be bad."