The 2021 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship title race is well and truly alive, with Championship leader Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha with BRIXX WorldSBK) leading Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) by a slender two points. One rider whose title chances took a dent at Donington Park is Scott Redding (Aruba.it Racing), with a Race 1 crash and Tissot Superpole Race tyre gamble that didn’t pay off. Race 2 was far better, with a fourth-place finish, but it is now seven races without a podium and a gap to the top of the Championship tree of 66 points.

Redding’s difficult home round did have one saving grace however, and that is the 0-point score for Rea in Race 2 on Sunday, with the Ulsterman making a rare error and crashing out of the lead of the race. Rea did remount to finish P20 but during his post-race interview, Redding debriefed the situation at the top of the standings.

“The goal is always the Championship and here in WorldSBK, there’s many more points on offer in comparison to in MotoGP™,” began Redding. “The points gap just looks big and it will be hard, but it isn’t impossible. From what I heard and what I could see, it looked like Jonathan made a mistake under a little bit of pressure from Toprak.”

However, Redding didn’t stop there, as the British rider then assessed how Jonathan Rea will deal with the Toprak challenge, saying: “What’s going to happen now? Maybe I’m not there, but I’m there to pick up the pieces in a worst-case scenario. Now there’s someone else in the mix ruffling up Jonathan’s feathers, and I think that’s going to be hard for him to accept.

“We saw him make a mistake at Misano because he couldn’t get away with his own pace, couldn’t really win races, and it is the same here a little bit. Not that he’s struggling, but that he’s being put under a little bit of pressure. It won’t be easy for him but having Toprak there over the next races, we’ll see what happens.”