Seventh consecutive triumph for Toni Bou in Trial World Championship

Another victory for Toni Bou in Great Britain in a complicated trial encumbered by tricky ground conditions. The Repsol Honda Team rider maintains his unbeaten streak this season after an impressive first lap which set him apart from adversaries. Jaime Busto finished fifth and Fujinami seventh.

Toni Bou has yet to savour defeat so far in the 2015 Trial World Championship, today lifting the seventh trophy of the season in the Great British rain on day one of the event. Indeed, weather hampered proceedings with intermittent rain making the sections slippery and treacherous, and inviting potential errors.

But while the rain poured, Toni Bou shone over the competition on a first lap completed with an extraordinary final tally of just five marks. The nearest second-place adversary handed in a scorecard with more than double that amount. It was a different affair on the second lap, in which the champion, on the Montesa Cota 4RT, chalked up three consecutive five-pointers early on before making amends with a string of clean sheets that left him with a final total of twenty-one. The Repsol Honda Team star kept the competition in check on the last lap, where in spite of a fault in the final section, was able to collect the seventh championship win on the trot, widening the gap over second-place Adam Raga to thirty-one points.

Fifth final place for Jaime Busto in spite of having found himself way behind in certain sections. The Basque rider from the Repsol Honda Team put up a good fight on the final lap, regaining some lost points on terrain ill-matched to his style, which made the final fifth place all the more notable.

Takahisa Fujinami started the trial picking up an abundance of points with six five-mark penalties on the first lap that left the Japanese rider a long way behind with serious difficulties of pulling back. He marked an improvement on lap two but the closeness of the competition meant that Fujinami was forced to settle for seventh place on the day. The HRC rider holds on to fourth overall.

Tomorrow, Nord Vue will again host the second and final day of the Great Britain GP where riders will repeat today’s route, which features twelve sections to be tackled three times round.