Cervantes takes first Indoor title!
By TMX Archives on 12th Feb 09
IVAN Cervantes put the finishing touches to his brilliant World Indoor Enduro Cup campaign to claim his first ever FIM Indoor Enduro Championship at the series' final event in Madrid, Spain.Taddy Blazusiak and Italian Fabio Mossini rounded out the top three in the final series standings while Britain's Dougie Lampkin joined Cervantes and Blazusiak on the podium at the end of a thrilling night's racing IVAN Cervantes is the new World Indoor Enduro Cup winner. Having dominated the opening two rounds of the series, the KTM factory rider needed only to finish ahead of team-mate Taddy Blazusiak inside the Palacio Deportes, in Madrid, in order to claim his first indoor enduro crown, which is exactly what the three-time WEC champion did.
With the hard work of opening up a sizeable championship advantage done, Ivan knew he didn't need to win races in order to clinch the championship but in topping the first of the three finals he delivered exactly what the near capacity crowd had hoped to see.
Ivan's opening race win showed just how good an indoor racer he has become. Getting an uncharacteristically bad start, he patiently worked his way forward while his closest championship rival, Blazusiak, looked to be heading for the race win.
But as Ivan moved inside the top six, and then inside the top three, Taddy hit troubles and started to see his commanding race lead disappear. With the Pole going backwards due to a clutch problem and with Ivan moving forwards, the Spaniard eventually took the lead before going on to win while Blazusiak slipped back to a lowly seventh, much to his disappointment.
Moving even further ahead at the top of the points table, and knowing that only a complete disaster would prevent him from now winning the title, Ivan changed his game plan – securing the championship became much more of a priority than trying to win any more of the night's finals.
"After the first race, I knew that I could win the title, so I didn't want to take any risks in the second final,” explained Ivan after the race. "I knew what I needed to do and that didn't mean worrying about winning the race.”
FOR FULL REPORT SEE T+MX NEWS, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2009
WORLD INDOOR ENDURO CUP
Rd 3 (Final) – Palacio Deportes, Madrid, SPAIN
OVERALL ON DAY: 1 Ivan Cervantes (KTM) 39 points, 2 Taddy Blazusiak (KTM) 34, 3 Dougie LAMPKIN (GB - Beta) 22, 4 Fabio Mossini (Honda) 20, 5 Graham JARVIS (GB - Sherco) 16, 6 Mika Ahola (Honda) 15, 7 Oriol Mena (Husaberg) 12, 8 Xavi Galindo (KTM) 12, 9 Thomas Oldrati (KTM) 9, 10 Greg EVANS (GB - KTM) 9, 11 Daniel Gibert (KTM) 8, 12 Lorenzo Santolino 2.
FINAL ONE: 1 Cervantes 5 laps, 2 Mossini 5, 3 LAMPKIN 5, 4 Oldrati 5, 5 JARVIS 5, 6 Galindo 5, 7 Blazusiak 5, 8 Gibert 5, 9 Ahola 5, 10 Mena 5,...
FINAL TWO: 1 Blazusiak 5, 2 Cervantes 5, 3 LAMPKIN 5, 4 Mena 5, 5 JARVIS 5, 6 Gibert 5, 7 EVANS 5, 8 Ahola 5, 9 Santolino 5, 10 Galindo 4,...
FINAL THREE: 1 Blazusiak 5, 2 Cervantes 5, 3 Ahola 5, 4 Mossini 5, 5 Galindo 5, 6 EVANS 5, 7 JARVIS 5, 8 Mena 5, 9 LAMPKIN 5, 10 Oldrati 5,...
FINAL SERIES STANDINGS: 1 Ivan Cervantes 117 points, 2 Taddy Blazusiak 99, 3 Fabio Mossini 57, 4 Ahola 52, 5 Galindo 49, 6 LAMPKIN 48, 7 Oldrati 38, 8 JARVIS 28, 9 Alessandro Botturi (KTM) 25, 10 EVANS 22, 11 Mena 12, 12 Bartosz Oblucki (Husqvarna) 9, 13 Simone Albergoni (KTM) 9, 14 Gibert 8, 15 Rodrig Thain (TM) 7, 16 Seb Guillaume (Husqvarna) 3.
Ivan Cervantes thrilled the crowd as he claimed his first World Indoor Championship in Madrid with podiums in all three races