His results at the official IRTA tests at Qatar the weekend before the Grand Prix had succeeded in causing a few surprises to the established Grand Prix regulars and Scott was expected to aquit himself well on race weekend. How well was yet to be revealed and, despite his super quick lap in official qualifying that put him on the front row of the grid for the race (the youngest ever rider to do so), most of the attention still rested with the other two Brits 17 year old Bradley Smith and the “all but” 17 year old Danny Webb. Webb was starting his second full year in GPs and Smith his third. Smith had been stunningly quick in practice and qualifying and had gained pole position with a time that was a new circuit record.
The race start looked as if Smith was going to fulfil all the potential he has shown through the testing and qualifying sessions and he went away from the start to lead into the first corner. Scott, usually a super fast starter stuggled to get his Aprilia off the line. A new clutch fitted before the race refused to feed in correctly and much of the field streamed past until the clutch decided to do its job and let Scott get on with his, leaving him mid field of the 35 starters. By lap three with some determined riding Scott had moved up to 9th place and was now ahead of initial leader Smith who was dropping back. We later knew that this was due to a bolt coming undone on the steering damper mechanism on his Aprilia occasionally jamming the steering. Typically, Smith was determined to keep going and continued to struggle on.
On lap 4 the 2007 Champion Gabor Talmasci was leading the race by a small margin from Raffaele de Rosa with the leading group made up of six closely packed riders. Webb who was running with this leading group in 5th place lost out in a battle with Sergio Gadea to drop to 6th. As the laps went by Scott moved into seventh place but was left with the task of bridging the gap that had formed between him and the leaders and on lap 7 he set the fastest lap of the race at 2:05.695, not to be bettered during the rest of the race and remains as the the new circuit lap record for the class.
By lap nine Scott had caught the leading group and was now in 6th place and sitting right behind Webb, who had re-passed Gadea, and on lap 10 he passed Webb to put himself in 5 th place. He then set his sight on seasoned campaigner Joan Olive and on lap 12 went up the inside, with a move that could well have removed paint from the two fairings, and then succeded in passing Joan Olive to put himself into an incredible 3rd place. The possibility of a podium at his first Grand Prix no longer seemed the impossible dream, the problem was that his big push to catch the leading group had pushed his tyres to the limit and he later told of the front end problem he was having with the front end trying to “tuck” on the slower corners.
Webb had dropped to 7th and was dropping back from the leading group. Another 17 year old, Stefan Bradl from Germany, riding the fastest bike in the race, was making a move to catch the leaders and soon passed Webb.
Sergio Gadea passed Scott down the start / finish straight as they began lap 14 and there was now less than a second between the top six. As lap 15 commenced Scott lost another place to drop to 6th. Talmasci was leading the lap until his Aprilia suddenly slowed and he quickly dropped back.
Di Meglio took the lead but soon lost it to Gadea, then 3rd place De Rosa slid off almost taking Mike Di Meglio out from 4th place and Scott slipped by to take 3rd place again. With 2 laps to go Di Meglio got ahead of Scott once again and Bradl had taken advantage of his machine’s speed and the leaders “tripping over” each other and was now right on the tail of the group.
As the last lap started the leading order was Gadea, Olive, Di Meglio, Redding, and Bradl all covered but less than 2 seconds. Half way round the lap Gadea and Olive looked to be certain 1st and 2nd but the last podium place was going to be a slipsteaming dash to the line and so it proved to be. As they exited the last lap Scott was right on the tail of Di Meglio who, well aware of the danger of being out dragged to the line, pulled across Scott’s path close enough to have Scott manouvering out of his way. The move probably cost him 3rd place and Scott 4th as Bradl took advantage of big hole in the air created by the two in front and passed both on the line to take his first career podium. Danny Webb came home in 7th spot and Bradley Smith finished just out of the points in 16th.
Just 1.819 seconds covered the leading five riders and 3rd to 5th places were covered by only 0.159 seconds.
A remarkable start to a MotoGP career for 15 year old SCOTT REDDING.
FULL GAS for Scott at Jerez on the 30th March.
Race Report 2008 QATAR MotoGP125
SCOTT’S RACE:
Page end
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Photos Courtesy MCN
The Worlds No1 Motorcycle paper
Photos Courtesy MCN
The Worlds No1 Motorcycle paper
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