After a strong rookie WorldSBK season in 2020, Scott Redding needs to go one better than runner-up in 2021 on his works Aruba Ducati.

With a new swingarm to try, plus other upgrades, he was second fastest in testing at Catalunya, just 0.179 seconds behind his 2020 nemesis, Rea.

“We were working to try and improve the weak areas of our machine. Last year in a race you could see where we were struggling, in the longer corners," said Redding.

"So we worked a lot to improve this - not so much one lap time - we worked many times with old tyres and tried to improve the feeling and the grip.

"We made some small steps better but we do need more, I will be honest, and that is kind of where we are at - that is what we focused on. I feel good on the bike, and I have a good feeling, but we need to just improve those couple of areas that affected us last year. We still have a little bit of work to do, but if we can improve this we are in a very strong position.”

His new team-mate and first time race winner in 2020, Michael Rinaldi, was fifth fastest overall, and had some similar experiences on the 2021 Ducati as Redding described, after doing almost 80 laps on the final day.

“Yesterday and today we made a lot of testing on the bike and sincerely we made many, many laps,” said Rinaldi. “I am quite happy about the work we have done, and for sure it is work that we do only in the test because we need to try new parts and stuff. So you do not have too much time to improve the feeling on the bike.

"But the positive thing is that Scott and I have more or less the same problems, which is good for Ducati because they can work in one area. This is a test and it is good to understand our weak points. Overall we are not the fastest, also in the pace, but we are quite close. But for sure we need to improve.”