Toni Bou continues his winning streak in the TrialGP World Championship and now has his 101st Grand Prix victory. He was joined on the podium by Jeroni Fajardo and Jaime Busto, with Adam Raga fourth, out of the positions of honour by two points.
The fifth round of the Trial World Championship was held in the French town of Auron, 1,700 metres above sea level, and just 20 kilometres away from Isola2000, a traditional location on the calendar where the European Trial Championship was also held last week.
Toni Bou started for the third time in a row with pole position, allowing him to manage the race behind his rivals. With a route of a lot of stone, demanding and with three areas that especially marked the differences. Bou stood out from the first lap of his rivals, with Fajardo as the only rider capable of fighting for the victory against the reigning champion. In the end, Toni was the only one to overcome the complicated zone 12 on the second lap, thus increasing his lead and adding 20 key points for the championship. Fajardo achieved a creditable second place after two weeks of recovery from a sprained ankle. Busto, also with a very regular season, completed the podium.
In Trial2 victory for Toby Martin in a very tight trial, followed by a double tie between Gabriel Marcelli and Jack Peace. In the Women’s TrialGP another triumph for Emma Bristow, who is one step above her rivals, followed by Neus Murcia and Sandra Gómez. In Trial2 Women , a resounding victory also went to Alex Bracanti, followed by Erika Melchior and Madeleine Hoover.
In the TrialE category, reserved for
electric trial motorcycles
, there is great expectation to see the new models from Electric Motion and Yamaha. Both presented new prototypes to fight Gas Gas for the title of electric companies. The Yamaha squad with Kenichi Kuroyama at the controls of a
Yamaha TYE
took a solid victory, followed by Loris Gubian on the
Gas Gas TXTE
and Bruand on the
Electric Motion EPure
.
2018 TRIALGP FRANCE CLASSIFICATION
CLASSIFICATION TRIAL2 FRANCE 2018
TRIALGPWOMEN FRANCE 2018 STANDINGS
QUALIFICATION TRIAL2WOMEN FRANCE 2018
TRIALE FRANCE 2018 CLASSIFICATION
DECLARATIONS
Toni Bou
“It was a very tough race, we were under a lot of pressure. It was difficult for us to be comfortable as we fought a lot and we gave our best with the set-up we had. It was a high-altitude race so there was an extra difficulty that thanks to living and training in Andorra, we managed it better and better. This is a very important win for the Championship.”
Jeroni Fajardo
“Today was a very good day for us. We finished in second position, after suffering these last weeks after the injury in the Spanish Championship. We have worked a lot with the doctor and the physiotherapist to be able to arrive at this appointment in the best condition and I have felt very good during the weekend. That allowed me to ride with confidence and little by little things worked out for us. I’m very happy because we were aiming for the win at all times and we were pushing, until we finished second, which is a very good result.”
Jaime Busto
“The weekend has been positive. We leave France with a third place and quite happy. Today went quite well, although we didn’t start in the best possible way because I scored a 5 in zone 2, which was very easy. But I managed to get it back and the feeling was good. We fought with Adam and managed to beat him [Raga] by two points. I also want to congratulate Jeroni [Fajardo] who had a very good race after his injury. We hope that next week will go even better.”
Adam Raga
“I’m satisfied with my riding. It was not an easy trial to manage, as there were very easy areas and others excessively difficult. In the end, with three fiascos on my card, I knew that my options were to get on the podium, which in the end has narrowly escaped me. I’m confident I’ll be higher up in Belgium.”
Takahisa Fujinami
“The first lap went quite well and until the last sections of the second lap I had a chance to get on the podium. I’m very happy with my riding, these last few weeks we’ve worked very hard with the whole Montesa Honda Team. Now I’m more comfortable and I’m more confident. I’m very happy to be competitive again.”
Loris Gubian
“The weekend has been almost perfect. I only made a small mistake in the first section which cost me 3 points, although in the end the race went well and the bike worked perfectly. This was my first test with the GasGas TXE in the TrialE Cup and I’m very happy because we didn’t have any problems. We worked very hard over the last two months on the bike to make everything go well and I think we had a good race. We are now three points behind [Kenichi] Kuroyama in the standings. We need to concentrate fully on next week’s Grand Prix in Belgium, where I hope we can win because I think we have the ability to do so and we want to get the win for GasGas.”
