Bautista sympathises with Redding's BMW struggles

Redding endured a miserable first weekend on BMW machinery at Aragon earlier this month following his much-publicised split with Ducati after two seasons in which he was a regular contender for wins.

The ex-MotoGP rider and 2019 British Superbike champion scored a solitary point for 15th place in the opening race, finishing outside of the points in 12th in the Superpole race and then retiring from the finale with brake trouble.

Redding's struggles are reminiscent of his Ducati replacement Bautista's own difficulties after the Spaniard joined Honda in 2020 to ride the Japanese brand's underdeveloped CBR1000RR-R contender.

Bautista managed only a trio of third-place finishes in two seasons with Honda before moving back to Ducati for this season and opening his 2022 campaign with a pair of wins to give himself an early championship lead.

Despite his success at Aragon, Bautista said his own difficulties at Honda means he can understand what Redding is going through with his new team.

"I know perfectly what he is feeling," he replied when asked about Redding's predicament at Aragon. "I know very well his frustration.

"He left a really good bike, an easy bike to arrive at a [certain] level. Then to go faster is more difficult, but to arrive at a [certain] level is easy. Also he changed engine, V4 to inline four, I think he has the same feeling I had [on the Honda].

"The only thing he can do is just work, try to adapt his riding style to that bike and try to get the maximum from that bike. It’s what I tried to do in the past."

 

Redding's struggles at Aragon followed a relatively positive winter aboard the M1000RR, culminating with the seventh-fastest time in the final major private test of the off-season at Barcelona in late March.

But BMW team boss Shaun Muir believes that the comparatively low-grip conditions of Aragon threw off all of the marque's riders, not only Redding.

Muir told Eurosport: “We’ve had quite a bit of testing like most teams have. We left Barcelona in really good shape, we were only four or five tenths slower where we expected the top guys were going to be.

"It’s been a big culture shock this week. We’ve had a tough time transitioning over. A lot of loss of grip. We’ve got more power, that’s been well publicised, we’ve got a new engine package but he’s finding it difficult, as are Loris [Baz] and Eugene [Laverty] as well.

"He knows he’s got to adapt to the bike and that’s going to take some time.”