A double for Ivan
By TMX Archives on 30th Jul 08
FORMER two-time world motocross champion, Michael Pichon, showed that, despite having been retired from international motocross competition for several years, he still knows how to finish on the top of a podium and produced a winning day one Enduro Two class performance at the sixth round of the WEC series, staged in Uzerche, France.
Topping the Enduro One class on both days, Ivan Cervantes, produced his best results of the season far, while in the Enduro Three class, home riders Christophe Nambotin and Seb Guillaume claimed a day win each.
FROM the mud and rain of the GP of Wales, the World Enduro Championship moved to Uzerche, France, where the sixth round of the series was greeted by clear skies and sweltering heat. Although not expected to be one of the championship's tougher events, the two-day event provided plenty of excitement, with French riders performing well in front of their home crowd.
Pleased, like many southern European riders, to see the back of the wet Welsh round, Ivan Cervantes produced his best form of the series so far in Uzerche to top the E1 class on both days.
With the Enduro One class fight now a clear two-man battle, Ivan's double victory was a hugely important one for the factory KTM rider but one that only saw him reduce Finn Mika Ahola's points advantage by six points.
With Ahola second on both days behind Cervantes, the real excitement in the class centred around the final rostrum position.
On day one, Ivan outpaced Mika by just 20 seconds, but on day two the reigning Enduro 3 World Champion topped 11 of the day's 12 special tests in the class to finish close to one minute ahead.
I wasn't pleased with my results in Wales, especially on the first day. I had to push really hard in conditions that I am not so strong in, but here in France I knew I could be fast.
I rode well on both days, especially on day two, so it's great to have won. Mika is not so far ahead in the championship now so the last two rounds of the series should be really exciting.
The first day in France saw home rider Marc Germain claim third. Having claimed his first victory of the season one week earlier in Wales, Germain was just seven seconds behind Ahola.
On day two, Mika again found himself under pressure, but this time from Spaniard Cristobal Guerrero. Collecting his first podium visit of the season, Cristobal bumped Germain off the podium in the dying stages as just two seconds separated the pair.
Despite the dry conditions, the event was a good one for Britain's Tom Sagar. Although missing out on sixth in class on day one by just 12 seconds, Tom rode well on day two to claim sixth.
Having contested enduro events in France for the last two seasons, former two-time motocross world champion, Michael Pichon's long awaited WEC debut ended victoriously on day one as the KTM rider topped the Enduro 2 podium, ahead of both Johnny Aubert and Juha Salminen.
Clearly giving the opening day his all, Pichon only once placed lower than third in class managing to fend off countryman and E2 championship leader Aubert. With little to separate the two riders throughout the day, Pichon's all-out effort on the final motocross test handed him victory with Aubert a disappointing five seconds behind.
With just 20 seconds separating the top three riders, Juha Salminen claimed the final podium position having lost 10 seconds early in the day following a spin. Despite his best efforts, Juha was unable to catch either Aubert or Pichon.
Clearly suffering from his exertions during the first day, Pichon was unable to repeat his result and, after nine special tests, decided enough was enough and withdrew from the event.
Although again fast on day two, Pichon made several mistakes and was clearly lacking the conditioning required to complete a two-day WEC event.
Making changes to his bike at the end of Saturday, and changes to his mindset before the start of day two, Juha Salminen completed the competition having looked like a different rider to the one who had placed in third on day one. Attacking each of the day's 12 special tests and winning all but two of them, the KTM rider outpaced Johnny Aubert in no uncertain terms.
I made some changes to my bike and my head and it seemed to have worked, smiled Juha at the end of the day. I don't really know what was wrong on day two in Wales or day one here, but I rode like I should, and like I normally do, on day two.
Knowing that a finish behind Juha, having beaten him on day one, he would only lose one championship point to his rival, Johnny Aubert who rode well to claim a comfortable runner-up position and maintain his lead at the top of the E2 series.
Third on day one went to Husqvarna's Antoine Meo. On day two, Meo was again unable to match either Aubert or Salminen's pace but just managed to finish ahead of TM rider Rodrig Thain.
The GP of France was a complete disaster for Enduro 3 class leader Samuli Aro as, hampered by both knee and finger injuries, the Finn placed fourth on day one and sixth on day two. But while it was a disappointing >>>
weekend for the KTM rider, it was a good one for French riders Christophe Nambotin and Seb Guillaume as they claimed a day win each aboard their 300cc two strokes.
At the end of the opening day, just eight-seconds separated the top three E3 class riders as Nambotin just managed to edge ahead of Guillaume with Merriman third on his Aprilia. Aro finished fourth, over one-minute behind the Australian.
Although disappointed not to have won, Guillaume was lucky to have finished at all! Losing concentration momentarily on a steep downhill, the Husqvarna rider crashed and his bike cart-wheeled into a river. Needing to turn it upside down in order to drain it of water, Seb went on to finish just four seconds behind Nambotin. Both riders showed that they are as fast in the dry as they are in the wet.
On day two Seb started as he meant to go on and in winning three of the opening four tests put a sizeable gap between himself and nearest challenger Marko Tarkkala. Opting to then take it a little steadier and not make any mistakes, he only won one further test but did enough to claim the day win by 17 seconds.
For Christophe Nambotin a second winning result was never really on the cards after he finished 12th on the second day's opening test. However, as the day neared its close and having worked himself back into a podium position, he then took close to 11 minutes to compete the extreme test which had taken him just over two minutes earlier in the day. Stranded with a throttle cable problem, Christophe was lucky to finish but claimed a lowly 16th.
With Marko Tarkkala nailing the runner-up spot after a sold day's riding, Stefan Merriman matched his day one third place to claim his first double podium result of the season.
Although the GP of France wasn't a good one for Samuli Aro, the Finn managed to hold onto his E3 championship lead ahead of countryman Tarkkala with Guillaume now third.
Finding that the tight extreme test and the many corners in the enduro test were difficult on a big four-stroke, Scott Euan McConnell didn't have the best of events, disappointingly finishing outside the top ten on both
days. With 15th on day one and 11th on day two, McConnell certainly wasn't a fan of the enduro test.
It was as if they did everything they to could make sure the enduro test didn't flow, explained McConnell. It was difficult on a big bike, which, added to the heat, made the second day really tiring.
Euan's TM team-mate, Gordon Clarke, finished 19th on day one.
At the end of another tough event for the Enduro Junior riders, Italian Thomas Oldrati earned himself a double class win comfortably placing ahead of Frenchmen Yannick Bossi and Romain Boucardey on day one and Oriol Mena and Bossi on day two.
Disappointingly for British Husqvarna rider Si Wakely, the opening day of the event ended early as a simple fall put him out of the race.
I crashed before the extreme test and as the bike hit the ground it sheered the bolt that holds the bars to the clamps. By the time we'd got the clamps off the spare bike I was out of time.
Thankfully, day two went better for Si who finished tenth at the end of what was a very long and tough day for all riders. Scoring points on both days TM UK rider Phillip McLaughlin finished in 18th and 17th.
DAY ONE
Enduro One: 1 Ivan Cervantes (KTM), 2 Mika Ahola (Honda), 3 Marc Germain (Yamaha), 4 Cristobal Guerrero (Yamaha), 5 Simone Albergoni (Yamaha), 6 Maurizio Micheluz (Yamaha), 7 Julien Gauthier (Honda), 8 Tom SAGAR (KTM), 9 Bartosz Oblucki (Husqvarna), 10 Jordan Curvalle (Suzuki), 11 Mike Hartmann (KTM), 12 Luca Cherubini (TM), 13 Daniele Tellini (Suzuki), 14 Jakub Horak (KTM), 15 Francois Coignac (KTM), 16 Miguel Maroto (Husqvarna).
Enduro Two: 1 Michael Pichon (KTM), 2 Johnny Aubert (Yamaha), 3 Juha Salminen (KTM), 4 Antoine Meo (Husqvarna), 5 Rodrig Thain (TM), 6 Alessandro Belometti (KTM), 7 Fabio Mossini (Honda), 8 Simo Kirssi (BMW), 9 Nicolas Deparrois (Gas Gas), 10 Nicolas Paganon (Aprilia), 11 Joakim Ljunggren (Husaberg), 12 Fabrizio Dini (Yamaha), 13 Jari Mattila (Honda), 14 Valtteri Salonen (Husaberg), 15 Filipe Zanol (Yamaha), 16 Rudy Cotton (Beta), 17 Aaron Bernardez (Husqvarna), 18 David Fretigne (Yamaha), 19 Vincent Turpin (Honda).
Enduro Three: 1 Christophe Nambotin (Gas Gas), 2 Sebastien Guillaume (Husqvarna), 3 Stefan Merriman (Aprilia), 4 Samuli Aro (KTM), 5 Marko Tarkkala (KTM), 6 Xavier Galindo (KTM), 7 Alessandro Botturi (Honda), 8 Fabien Planet (KTM), 9 Bjorne Carlsson (Husaberg), 10 Anders Eriksson (BMW), 11 Antoine Letellier (Aprilia), 12 Jordi Figueras (KTM), 13 Marcus Kehr (KTM), 14 Stefan Svitko (KTM), 15 Euan McCONNELL (TM), 16 Joan Jau (Honda), 17 Erwin Plekkenpol (Honda), 18 Kevin Hamard (Sherco), 19 Gordon CLARKE (TM).
Enduro Junior: 1 Thomas Oldrati (KTM), 2 Yannick Bossi (TM), 3 Romain Boucardey (KTM), 4 Mirko Gritti (Beta), 5 Sebastien Bozzo (Husqvarna), 6 Lorenzo Santolino (KTM), 7 Jeremy Joly (Sherco), 8 Benoit Fortunato (Husqvarna), 9 Oskari Kantonen (KTM), 10 Edoardo D'Ambrosio (TM), 11 Edward Hubner (KTM), 12 Michael Pogna (KTM), 13 Armand Monleon (Yamaha), 14 Sylvain Lebrun (KTM), 15 Vanni Cominotto (KTM), 16 Romain Dumontier (Husqvarna), 17 Antti Hellsten (Husqvarna), 18 Philip McLAUGHLIN (TM), 19 Bert Meyer (BMW), 20 Pierre Pallut (Husqvarna).
DAY TWO
Enduro One: 1 Ivan Cervantes (KTM), 2 Mika Ahola (Honda), 3 Cristobal Guerrero (Yamaha), 4 Marc Germain (Yamaha), 5 Simone Albergoni (Yamaha), 6 Tom SAGAR (KTM), 7 Maurizio Micheluz (Yamaha), 8 Jordan Curvalle (Suzuki), 9 Mike Hartmann (KTM), 10 Bartosz Oblucki (Husqvarna), 11 Julien Gauthier (Honda), 12 Luca Cherubini (TM), 13 Kevin Gauniaux (KTM), 14 Damien Miquel (Yamaha), 15 Jakub Horak (KTM).
Enduro Two: 1 Juha Salminen (KTM), 2 Johnny Aubert (Yamaha), 3 Antoine Meo (Husqvarna), 4 Rodrig Thain (TM), 5 Simo Kirssi (BMW), 6 Alessandro Belometti (KTM), 7 Jari Mattila (Honda), 8 Nicolas Paganon (Aprilia), 9 Emmanuel Albepart (Kawasaki), 10 Fabrizio Dini (Yamaha), 11 Filipe Zanol (Yamaha), 12 Aaron Bernardez (Husqvarna), 13 David Fretigne (Yamaha), 14 Amel Advokaat (KTM), 15 Olivier Pain (Yamaha), 16 Valtteri Salonen (Husaberg).
Enduro Three: 1 Sebastien Guillaume (Husqvarna), 2 Marko Tarkkala (KTM), 3 Stefan Merriman (Aprilia), 4 Markus Kehr (KTM), 5 Xavier Galindo (KTM), 6 Samuli Aro (KTM), 7 Fabien Planet (KTM), 8 Alessandro Botturi (Honda), 9 Anders Eriksson (BMW), 10 Antoine Letellier (Aprilia), 11 Euan McCONNELL (TM), 12 Joan Jou (Honda), 13 Stefan Svitko (KTM), 14 Erwin Plekkenpol (Honda), 15 Jordi Figueras (KTM), 16 Christophe Nambotin (Gas Gas), 17 Kevin Hamard (Sherco).
Enduro Junior: 1 Thomas Oldrati (KTM), 2 Oriol Mena (KTM), 3 Yannick Bossi (TM), 4 Mirko Gritti (Beta), 5 Lorenzo Santolino (KTM), 6 Vanni Cominotto (KTM), 7 Jeremy Joly (Sherco), 8 Benoit Fortunato (Husqvarna), 9 Michel Pogna (KTM), 10 Simon Wakely (Husqvarna), 11 Armand Monleon (Yamaha), 12 Sebastien Bozzo (Husqvarna), 13 Oskari Kantonen (KTM), 14 Andrea Beier (KTM), 15 Antoine Basset (Husqvarna), 16 David Gannac (Suzuki), 17 Philip McLAUGHLIN (TM), 18 Pierre Pallut (Husqvarna), 19 Romain Goiffure (Husaberg), 20 Edward Hubner (KTM).