Olé Ahola
By TMX Archives on 6th Sep 07
THE penultimate round of the World Enduro Championship saw competitors travel to the small Slovakian town of Krompachy at the weekend where Finland's Mika Ahola took an important step towards claiming his first ever world title by topping the E2 class on day one and placing as runner-up on day two.
Spain's Ivan Cervantes claimed two more Enduro 3 class wins to pullfurther ahead of his KTM team-mate, Marko Tarkkala, while Sweden'sJoakim Ljunggren strengthened his lead in the Enduro Junior class.
With Enduro 1 class leader, Juha Salminen, opting not to compete dueto injury, Yamaha team-mates Cristobal Guerrero and Simone Albergonishared top honours in the E1 class. However, despite his absence, Juhastill holds a comfortable lead at the head of the E1 standings...
Returning to the exact same forest tracks and the exact same specialtests that were used for the penultimate round of last year's WECseries, the seventh round of this year's series ended with Finns JuhaSalminen and Mika Ahola, Spain's Ivan Cervantes and Sweden's JoakimLjunggren now all but assured of becoming world champions at the finalround of the series in two-weeks time.
Despite a wet opening day and a dry second day there were few surprise results in Krompachy although the Enduro 1
class saw two riders - Cristobal Guerrero and Simone Albergoni,claim their first wins of the season due to the absence of KTM's JuhaSalminen.
With Juha opting to sit out the GP of Slovakia in order to let hisbroken collarbone heal, the Finn's sizeable points advantage going intothe event meant that despite his DNS he still holds a 27-point classlead and looks extremely likely to claim his seventh world title at thefinal round in France. >>>
With several riders determined to make the most of Juha's absence,it was Yamaha-mounted Spaniard Cristobal Guerrero who topped the E1class on day one having held off his team-mate Simone Albergoni andFrance's Marc Germain. Starting the day well Guerrero remained fast andupright all day despite heavy rain during the second and third laps.
''The first day was great for me. I didn't make any mistakes and wasable to really concentrate on all of the special tests, even when itstarted to rain. I thought that Marc (Germain) and Simone (Albergoni)would catch me, but I was able to stay ahead of them. It felt really,really good to claim my first ever win.''
WORLD ENDURO CHAMPIONSHIP Rd 7 - Krompachy, SLOVAKIA
DAY ONE
Enduro 1: 1 Cristobal Guerrero (Yamaha) 50:27.73, 2 Simone Albergoni(Yamaha) 50:41.71, 3 Marc Germain (Yamaha) 50:52.64, 4 AlessandroBelometti (KTM) 51:08.09, 5 Bartosz Oblucki (Husqvarna) 51:23.57, 6Maurizio Micheluz (Yamaha) 52:98.02, 7 Mike Hartman (KTM) 52:32.52, 8Luca Cherubini (TM) 53:09.20, 9 Daniele Tellini (KTM) 54:22.11, 10 ParOlsson (Yamaha) 55:10.35.
Enduro 2: 1 Mika Ahola (Honda) 49:43.57, 2 Johnny Aubert (Yamaha)50:04.69, 3 Samuli Aro (KTM) 50:13.18, 4 Stefan Merriman (Aprilia)50:22.97, 5 Fabien Planet (KTM) 50:31.14, 6 Nicolas Deparrois(Husqvarna) 51:36.53, 7 Fabrizio Dini (Yamaha) 51:38.80, 8 XavierGalindo (KTM) 51:40.02, 9 Patrick Caps (Gas Gas) 52:34.01, 10 RodrigThain (TM) 52:40.41.
Enduro 3: 1 Ivan Cervantes (KTM) 49:56.47, 2 Seb Guillaume(Husqvarna) 50:09.18, 3 Bjorne Carlsson (Husaberg) 51:07.28, 4 MarkoTarkkala (KTM) 51:17.08, 5 Marcus Kehr (KTM) 51:31.10, 6 Jean FrancoisGoblet (KTM) 51:47.66, 7 Anders Eriksson (Husqvarna) 52:04.16, 8Alessandro Botturi (Honda) 52:04.93, 9 Vita Kuklik (KTM) 52:50.12, 10Andrea Belotti (KTM) 53:06.60.
Enduro Junior: 1 Joakim Ljunggren (Husaberg) 51:13.50, 2 ChristopheNambotin (Gas Gas) 51:24.62, 3 Tom Sagar (KTM) 51;42.21, 4 MarcBourgeois (Husqvarna) 52:03.20, 5 Thomas Oldrati (KTM) 52:37.88, 6Daryl Bolter (Husqvarna) 53:06.41, 7 Mirko Gritti (Beta) 53:21.37, 8Lorenzo Santolino (KTM) 53:39.44, 9 Si Wakely (Husqvarna) 53:43.24, 10Jeremy Joly (Sherco) 53:53.64.
DAY TWO
Enduro 1: 1 Simone Albergoni (Yamaha) 58:10.51, 2 Marc Germain(Yamaha) 58:20.71, 3 Cristobal Guerrero (Yamaha) 58:36.92, 4 MaurizioMicheluz (Yamaha) 59:40.10, 5 Alessandro Belometti (KTM) 59:59.99, 6Mike Hartman (KTM) 1.00:30.08, 7 Luca Cherubini (TM) 1.01:17.42, 8Fabio Mossini (Honda) 1.02:17.06, 9 Daniele Tellini (KTM) 1.02:26.69,10 Par Olsson (Yamaha) 1.03:57.91.
Enduro 2: 1 Johnny Aubert (Yamaha) 57:17.37, 2 Mika Ahola (Honda)58:05.50, 3 Stefan Merriman (Aprilia) 58:42.58, 4 Samuli Aro (KTM)59:05.84, 5 Fabrizio Dini (Yamaha) 59:18.67, 6 Fabien Planet (KTM)59:28.83, 7 Nicolas Deparrois (Husqvarna) 59:54.41, 8 Xavier Galindo(KTM) 59:57.79, 9 Jari Mattila (Beta) 1.00:15.21, 10 Rodrig Thain (TM)1.00:38.85.
Enduro 3: 1 Ivan Cervantes (KTM) 57:01.60, 2 Seb Guillaume(Husqvarna) 58:39.35, 3 Marko Tarkkala (KTM) 58:49.25, 4 AlessandroBotturi (Honda) 58:54.18, 5 Bjorne Carlsson (Husaberg) 59:00.48, 6Marcus Kehr (KTM) 59:05.68, 7 Jean-Francois Goblet (KTM) 1.00:09.81, 8Vita Kuklik (KTM) 1.00:21.95, 9 Alessio Paoli (TM) 1.00:56.04, 10Alessandro Zanni (TM) 1.01:03.98.
Enduro Junior: 1 Christophe Nambotin (Gas Gas) 58:47.11, 2 JoakimLjunggren (Husaberg) 58:52.80, 3 Tom Sagar (KTM) 59:07.40, 4 ThomasOldrati (KTM) 59:07.40, 5 Marc Bourgeois (Husqvarna) 59:46.55, 6 MirkoGritti (Beta) 1.00:03.07, 7 Carlos Andreu (KTM) 1.01:23.11, 8 RobertKapajcik (KTM) 1.01:24.98, 9 Si Wakely (Husqvarna) 1.01.27.14, 10Sylvain Lebrun (Husqvarna) 1.01:33.77.
For full story and pictures see T+MX NEWS, Friday, September 7, 2007.
