Scott Redding said some quite uncomplimentary things about the SCX tyre that Pirelli is now bringing as a regular race tyre inside the riders’ allocations.

It is now not just an oddball tyre designed for and only really useable in the ten lap Tissot Superpole sprint races in 2021. Redding proved it to a cynic like himself in the most stark way possible, by winning on it in race one at Estoril.

He was forced to eat his words, washed down with victory Prosecco, after winning the first 21-lap race of the WorldSBK weekend. Obviously, it was a high priority question to find out why a few days earlier the X-tyre should be removed from the lists according to the Ducati rider himself, but then Redding used it to batter the opposition with a display of consistent and assured front running. For 21laps, remember.

He beat both Toprak Razgatlioglu and Jonathan Rea by just under a second all in, but both riders behind realised that it was Redding’s race all day.

I asked Redding, ‘tell us about the X-Tyre Scott?’ and without missing a beat he said, “The thing is, I started the race and I was a few laps in and I was going down the back straight and I thought, “You’ve got the SCX tyre in here, what the fuck are you doing?” I was a bit in panic. There was a couple of laps where I needed to control a little bit but they were breathing down my neck. I was trying to control it and trying to push. I was very worried but here is the only track that has the least tyre consumption.

"In Aragon the bike was not working and had so high tyre consumption, even with the SC0. It was completely finished. Here, I did a long run in FP2, a race run, and it (the SCX) wasn’t too bad, so we took the gamble for it. But it is a gamble. I was like, ‘is it going to stay, is it not?'.

I kinda knew Toprak was on the SCX, I thought that would be the tyre he went for. So I was like, if it’s going to drop for me, it’s going to drop for him too. I didn’t know Jonathan was behind him and Jonathan had the SC0.

"It just goes to show that Kawasaki has more grip than the others for the moment. He can make the same pace with the 0 as us with the X. But, I think they have more tyre consumption. They cannot use the X. My tyre, I don’t think I would have got many more laps out of it… There was a lot of rubber gone, so it kind of worked to perfection. Also being able to do my lines, I was able to turn kind of how I wanted. That is what makes the difference. If I can ride it nice, and well, on a low consumption track like here, then maybe I can get away with it. But tomorrow will be a different scenario.”

Redding was not so happy at Motorland Aragon’s opener, despite winning a race with his canny and self-determined choice of slick tyres on what proved to be a drying track on Sunday afternoon.

In the warmth of Estoril, after Aragon’s three seasons in three days, Redding confirmed that they had change his bike a lot over the past few days. And especially from the winter tests themselves.

“We changed the bike a lot,” he said. “It is the same thing, you do winter testing and honestly, it is a waste of time. You have to test things and try stuff but it is a complete waste of time because you make this set-up that feels amazing and you get the first race, warmer temperatures and you have to throw it out the window.

"In Aragon we didn’t get off to a good start, it was a difficult track for us anyway, the bike wasn’t working, the weather… it was just one of those weekends I wanted to forget. But then we had to really think, last year we were more or less competitive everywhere. We were not super-good, or super-bad, just averagely good.

"It felt like in the cold we were really good in the hot we were really bad. So I said we need to understand what we were doing last year to make this package work. So I can fight for podiums - because they are not going to be going half a second a lap faster than last year. It was not going to happen.

"That is what we did, I got that feeling back and the bike was working quite well. I managed to win the race and hold up the two guys behind. I am quite happy, I would like to keep it the same and work on that.”