Jaime Busto and Toni Bou They are tied for the fifth round of the TrialGP World Championship, which will be held in Japan on May 20 and 21, something that has not happened since 2013 and that only happened once in the “Toni Bou era”, when Bou himself was able to turn the championship around in the second half of the calendar.
The 26-year-old Basque rider faces one of the most important seasons of his professional career with a new team, the GASGAS Factory Team. While for Jaime the bike is not a complete unknown, as he rode for GASGAS in 2018, in 2023 the team, which is under the KTM umbrella, is new and a new TXT model has also been developed: the 2023 GASGAS TXT GP
JAIME BUSTO’S GROWTH AS A PILOT
The work done by Jaime Busto with Vertigo has been very important, as it has allowed him to grow as a rider and achieve his great sporting successes, such as the title of Spanish Champion, the title of Runner-up in the Trial World Championship, as well as victories for the brand in the Trial World Championship.
With that base, Jaime needed to finish evolving his technique, but above all in his regularity and way of facing races. To take the title of World Champion against Toni Bou it is not enough to be an excellent rider, nor to overcome the sections better than your rival. It’s more a matter of regularity and knowing that, in order to aspire to the maximum, you are not allowed to fail. And it is precisely there where Jaime has achieved his great evolution in 2023: “I’ve worked on adapting to the bike as quickly as possible and also on developing a training program that allows me to be more focused, following schedules. In every test I try to be more consistent with my riding, which was one of my weak points last season.”
THE NEW GENERATION IS MAKING ITS WAY
After more than a decade with the everlasting duel between Toni Bou and Adam Raga, it seems that 2023 is a turning point in this scenario, and it is so in two sections.
First, because Adam Raga is still a candidate for victory in every race, but it doesn’t look like he has the consistency to fight for the title at the end of the season.
Second, because there are now more players in the fight for victory. Two or three years ago, the two big players had more margin for error without falling into the general classification. This season we see that Jaime Busto’s rise is also accompanied by that of Gabriel Marcelli, which means that it is easy to be left off the podium and lose ground in the provisional standings.
Jaime Busto is finding that consistency that allows him to make Toni Bou uncomfortable in every race. Not only is he capable of winning, but also of recovering widely in the second halves of the race, something that says a lot about this Change of mentality and their ability to recover from eventual mistakes: “In the past I’ve had very good races and then I could do some very bad ones. I was always a step behind Bou and Raga, but mostly because they were much more consistent. Now I’m aware that I can be with them at every race.”
Nor should we forget Gabriel Marcelli, who is having a rise parallel to that of Jaime Busto. Perhaps he will also need this full year to finish polishing aspects of his riding and race management, so that in 2024 he will have a regularity equivalent to that of Toni and Jaime. What is clear is that these three riders are the ones who are at a higher level right now and there are options to fight for the title with Toni Bou.
The result we see in Japan, where 40 points are up for grabs this weekend, will be very important for the future of the 2023 Trial World Championship.
For Jaime Busto, all the pilots
