As the Olympics in Tokyo started on the weekend WorldSBK went back to its own historic Mount Olympus at Assen, British gold medal hopeful Scott Redding could not quite get to the top step of the podium. If your name was not Jonathan Rea, nobody could this weekend, or even win Superpole.

Speaking after race two, in which he finished second to Rea for his second silver medal of the weekend, Redding said that a good start would have been required to fulfil his real ambition of winning.

“I think a good start would have helped me,” said Redding. “Just getting that bike off the line is hard. It’s difficult. Then the first corner carnage seems to be a regular occurrence. Fucks everything up for everyone.

“But then I was pushing and I was scared to overcook the front tyre, so to overtake was difficult for me because I needed to do it late because I couldn’t get in a strong position to overtake. By doing that I needed to brake longer in the corner and it just really made the tyre drop. So, I was kind of stuck a little bit in handcuffs.”

Redding was again frustrated by the limits he encounters early in the races when looking to win sometimes.

That was why when Jonathan came past I was like, ‘Why can’t I just go?’ I can’t. But then in one moment, I can go. So, it’s like I’m stuck doing one rhythm and there’s nothing more I can do, and in one moment the bike, maybe with the fuel weight, I don’t know, something ‘switches’ and I’m released and I can go and do the rhythm that I can do.

“It’s a fast rhythm. It’s a strong rhythm. I was coming, but it’s too much gap in the beginning to recover to win a race, when you’re up against someone that’s so strong.”

Redding feels that without this he could have had a better chance to challenge more strongly. “I had the perfect opportunity. He came past me. I just literally couldn’t go with him. There was nothing I could do. But then at the end of the race when it was working, I was closing in a lot. Something we need to work on to make the bike perform.”

Overall, Redding could have had a much worse weekend than two seconds and a fifth. “Not a terrible weekend,” he stated. “Back on the podium twice. Better than the last two rounds we’ve been doing. So, I’ve got to take the positive away from it. I’m really happy with my performance. I really just pushed everything I had to the end. I always will. It’s just you want to win. Something just kicks you back a little bit because you are giving everything and you’re trying everything.

“It always comes too late. It always feels that they know something that we don’t know, and we always find out two days later, with the tyres or temperature. There’s always something that I feel gives them a small advantage over us. They always seem to know what’s the direction to go. We always take a gamble. Gambles don’t always work.”