Redding Lights Pre-Season
WorldSBK Fuse
O
nly two weeks after the
2019 WorldSBK season had
completed its life cycle, the 2020
season got underway at Aragon
at a vigorous pace both on and
off the timesheets, November
13-14.
With several big-name rider
shuffles and the adoption of
another "new" name that instantly
wrote his own headline, it was a
gripping start, despite occasional
rain, high winds and low track
temperatures.
With the all-new HRC Honda
squad missing, there was no Al-
varo Bautista/Leon Haslam/new
be-winged Fireblade to be seen,
but otherwise, variety outnum-
bered continuity, relative to 2019.
The reigning and now five-
times champion Jonathan Rea
(KRT) was fastest in the second
half of day one, then opted to
miss the risk of a second day that
dawned wet, and even colder
than day one. His opening best
1:50.416 would be eclipsed most
adeptly on day two by the new
star of the show so far, Scott
Redding (Aruba.it Ducati) with the
only sub-1:50.00 lap, a 1:49.929
which he set on a Q rear. He
thought he had around 0.3
seconds better in him but made
a mistake in the first few turns of
his Q lap.
Recently an experienced Mo-
toGP rider, the 2019 BSB Cham-
pion won that title on an electron-
ics-light V4 R first time out.
Redding already seems an
excellent fit for a WorldSBK lead
man's role in 2020.
"I felt a bit better with the bike
today," said Redding. "Still not
comfortable with a few compo-
nents on the bike, brakes and
stuff. I am still not 100% comfort-
able. We tried a few things with
the chassis today that helped me
improve the lap time a little bit.
I felt more comfortable getting
more laps on the bike to under-
IN
THE
WIND
P38
Aruba.it Racing - Ducati's
Scott Redding topped
WorldSBK testing at Aragon.
Photos: WorldSBK.com
