It may have been a breakthrough return to form for his BMW Motorrad WorldSBK team as a whole but there was otherwise little joy to be found for Scott Redding himself following a tough Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya round.

In what has been a challenging start to the 2024 WorldSBK season for Redding since his transition from the works BMW Motorrad set-up to the satellite Bonovo Action Racing team, the 2020 WorldSBK runner-up put himself on the back foot with 12th place in Superpole before struggling with tyre preservation in the three races.

Finishing well down the order with 17th in Race 1 and outside of the points with 12th in the Superpole Race, Redding showed a step forward in the final full-length Race 2 to cross the line 11th for only his second scoring finish of the year from six starts.

His fortunes were in stark contrast to those of fellow BMW riders Toprak Razgatlioglu and Michael van der Mark on the factory ROKiT M 1000 RRs, with the pair achieving a pole position, two victories and five top six results between them.

“The Superpole Race was quite good for me,” Redding said. “I felt pretty good so I managed to gain some confidence for race two. There, I was really motivated to finish in the top ten. That was my goal. 

“I came off the start, I came together with Dominique Aegerter so I lost some positions. Then in turn three, Iker Lecouna just ran me off the track, so I lost again some positions and then we kind of settled; the group was trying to save the tyres. 

“Then there was a big crash in turn one. I am happy that they both walked away okay from it. There was a gap I had to try to close and I used my tyre more. 

“I felt good on the bike, that was the main thing. I felt that I could actually push the bike and start to race and have confidence. On the last few laps, the tyre dropped more. 

“I finished 11th in the end; the top ten was there. So I was happy, because Barcelona is one of the worst tracks in the calendar for me and I came away with confidence, which is the first time in three years that this has happened, so I look forward to the next round.”

Redding leaves the Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona placed 16th in the overall WorldSBK standings.