Toni Bou 
After last weekend’s hard-fought victory in Marseille, the rider from Piera has now accumulated 28 consecutive victories, who have been unbeaten since January 2010.
In this French town, where the second scoring event was being held, Toni had a very in-form Adam Raga in front of him. Not surprisingly, the Gas Gas rider dominated and led the qualifying round, showing himself to be a fish in water on the complex French course. In addition, Raga had just beaten Bou in the prestigious Indoor Trial in Toulouse, so the motivation to close the gap with his main rival could not be higher.
In the qualifying round, the first surprise was James Dabill, who is being the focus of attention this season for being in charge of putting the new Vertigo Combat into competition. It was a bad day in Marseille for the English rider, who closed the night with a bitter penultimate position behind Karlsson, the young Swedish rider who replaces Fujinami, who is absent due to injury. Gubian and Ferrer were also left out of the final, while the magnificent 4 – Raga, Bou, Cabestany and Fajardo – would face each other in the last round.
The particularity of this second part of the race is that the previous sections -6 in total- are done in the opposite direction, which in this case caused a notable increase in the level of difficulty.
Raga knew how to manage the race perfectly, but a mistake in the second section, which Bou went to zero, made him give up four points to his rival that he could not recover in the remaining sections. Bou, as always, showed himself to be a fish in water in the face of adversity, showing that neither the highest level nor pressure are capable of diminishing his riding quality.
The podium was completed by Albert Cabestany, who now shares the provisional second position in the championship with Adam Raga, both 13 points behind Bou with 60 points still up for grabs.
The action will return this coming weekend to Pou, also in France.
DECLARATIONS
Toni Bou: “It was a great victory, with a very tough qualifying, where I couldn’t make mistakes so as not to be left out. The final was very complicated, as I like it. I was able to take risks in the last area, even, to be able to make the audience enjoy it. I’m very happy with this type of race, it’s very worthy for the World Championship: you have to look for the limits and today you have to congratulate the organiser.”
Adam Raga: “This last race went very well for us. I won the first lap and was leading in the final until I made a mistake in zone two. And that gap remained until the end of the race. The Marseille trial was a very technical and difficult race, especially on the second lap. I am satisfied with our work. This is only the second round of the World Championship, we have just started, we are second in the standings and there is still a long way to go, so we will see.”
RESULTS
