Aprilia MotoGP experience made Scott Redding ‘hate racing’

Scott Redding says his final season competing in MotoGP with Aprilia pushed him to the brink of making him ‘hate bikes’ but says the subsequent positive revival of his racing career is now spurring him on to greater motivation than ever.

The Briton spent five seasons in MotoGP, including two years with Honda and two years with Pramac Ducati, before landing a factory seat with Aprilia Racing for 2018.

However, he struggled for pace on an uncompetitive machine before landing himself a huge rebuke from his bosses following an outburst on social media in which is called the RS-GP a ‘piece of shit.

Though Redding apologised for those words, it was clear the ex-Moto2 runner-up’s relations had frayed to such an extent that he was willing to walk away from the sport altogether because of the mental toil he encountered.

Speaking in an interview conducted between Redding and WorldSBK rival Jonathan Rea, the Kawasaki man raised the ‘nightmare’ season, saying “I  watched you closely at Aprilia and I felt really sorry for you because you can just feel when the team don’t have your back. It’s a nightmare.”

Redding responded by saying those difficult moments have ultimately changed his perception on how to enjoy the good moments when they do come.

“I have never experienced anything that bad in my entire life, I was like ‘what is this about’ my head was gone and that is when I had to make this decision, I needed out. 

“I just need out of this thing and do something where I can rebuild myself and that is when last year I went to BSB and enjoyed racing again. 

“I hated racing, I hated bikes, I didn’t want to see it. Now I have come to the point where I am starting to enjoy it again, it’s nice to come back to WorldSBK and I have a good team and a good bike behind me, allowing me to ride with the best bikers at Superbike level. 

“It’s nice to have that but maybe you have to go through hard times to appreciate it