Scott Redding says he has no grip and is unable to go faster following a tough qualifying session for tomorrow’s MotoGP race at Misano.
The Brit will line up in 18th spot on the grid, and says things are at an all-time low as he struggles to find grip and as a result is losing out on speed.
“I’ve got no grip. I go into turn one and I basically hit the face of turn two, I go into turn two and I hit the face of turn three and that leads all the way around the track. In FP1, FP2 I could get the bike to stop and turn, when I release the brake now the bike just goes straight and in the faster corners I just close the front and go wide, if I slow down the lap time slows down so it’s difficult.
“I feel over the weekend I’ve taken more and more angles to try and get the bike to turn and I’ve got less and less grip. If I don’t take the lean I don’t turn at all so it’s difficult at the moment. There’s a bit of chattering, I’ve got no real turn so I’ve got no real drive and I’ve got no good lines so everything is just difficult.”
“It’s getting worse, not better. The lap times are getting slower, the feeling’s been getting worse and to be honest we’re stuck in a bad situation and I don’t really know how to improve.
“I can’t go fast, I’m just getting slower. I can’t get faster, the track gets hotter and hotter and we have less and less feeling, less and less grip so I really have no idea what to expect for the race tomorrow. It’s going to be long race, it’s going to be a hard race so yeah, and it’s going to be difficult.
The Octo Pramach Yakhnich rider admitted that he has been looking at the factory Ducati team’s data to find clues as to why his machine isn’t working as well as it should, but says it’s thrown up nothing that can be easily rectified.
“Most of the time it’s in the straight and when it’s in difficult conditions like this where the corner speed is limited, the braking is limited, the traction is limited then small areas in the straight make a big difference.
“You can’t recover it in the corner, so it’s hard to see it and then you know you’re being defeated mainly in a straight line. There may be a couple of places where you can improve or maybe the new bike they have is better in certain areas but me and Danilo, we always seem to struggle when we struggle and we do good when we do good, but today was one of those days we struggled.”