Redding looking forward to Hayden battle in 2014

Scott Redding is relishing the chance to gauge himself against former MotoGP world champion Nicky Hayden in the 2014 MotoGP world championship.

The Briton will ride the same production Honda RCV1000R that Hayden will campaign next season, which is a win-win scenario for Redding.

Until the high-profile Aspar squad inked its late HRC deal, Redding was to be joined on the RCV1000R by injury-ravaged Czech rider Karel Abraham.

With Hayden now easily the fastest and most experienced rider on a RCV1000R, Redding will now have a reference to base his own performance on.

And the challenge of racing the 32-year-old is one he is relishing. Speaking to MCN, the 2013 Moto2 runner-up Redding said: “When I heard Nicky was going to be riding the production bike I was really happy. I want to be the best non-factory rider next year and I am not a person that wants to win anything without any competition. I like to work and fight for it.

“You can see on the Ducati that it is not him, but the bike. He is going to have new motivation and he will be strong but at least if I know he is 0.5s faster than me, we will know the level of the bike and the problem if there is one is me. It will be interesting to see how he does and I am looking forward to fighting with him. And it is not going to be impossible to beat him”.