Jaime Busto wins the Estonian XTrial and Bou is left off the podium

The debut of the Estonian capital as a scoring event for the FIM X-Trial World Championship has ended with Jaime Busto (GasGas) returning to victory and scoring his fourth victory in the World Championship, Benoit Bincaz (Sherco) again on the podium and Toni Bou (Repsol Honda Trial Team) outside the top three positions.

The final was contested by Busto, Bincaz and Gabriel Marcelli (Repsol Honda Trial Team) and the victory was not decided until the last section where Busto and Marcelli arrived separated by a point in favour of GasGas. For his part, Benoit Bincaz had been dropped in third place after taking a five in the fourth section. In the last of the six zones of the final, both Busto and Marcelli have penalized a single point and the former has won a victory that he has not obtained since winning the Wiener Neustadt race last year. This victory brings Busto closer to the second place that is being disputed with Marcelli. For his part, Bincaz has returned to the podium for 17 races after having stood on it for the last time in Bilbao 2020.

The surprise of the night came in the third zone of the second round. Busto had finished the second round without penalizing in any of the five sections, Marcelli had only penalized one point and Toni Bou made a mistake that left the 18-time World Champion out of the Final, something that had not happened since the Championship visited Paris in 2018.

The fifth place finish went to Adam Raga (Sherco) who ended up two points ahead of Miquel Gelabert (Vertigo) who was very inspired in the second round. Frenchman Hugo Dufrese (GasGas) and Briton Jack Peace (Sherco), who was making his debut in the Championship in the Estonian capital, closed the standings for this penultimate round of the season.

Jaime Busto (1st): “I’m very happy because after a positive first round, I did an incredible second round and in the final I fine-tuned to the maximum. It was a very even final that was decided in the last zone, but I felt very good at all times and with a lot of strength. This result is very important for the fight for the runner-up position in the World Championship.”

Gabriel Marcelli (2nd): “I think I drove well today and I made some small mistakes in an easy race like today’s and this led me to lose points in the Championship, but I’m happy because I think I’m still at a very high level and it’s about trying to achieve my first World Championship victory in Pamplona.”

Benoit Bincaz (3rd): “It’s an amazing feeling and I think this podium is even more important for me than the first podium I got in the Championship. After having gone through injuries and various negative circumstances, I have finally arrived here and I am very happy to get back on it after four years.”

The last race of the season will take place in Pamplona on November 16th.