It's Al' in a day's work
By TMX Archives on 2nd Apr 08
LEAVING Europe's frozen north behind, the 2008 World Enduro Championship moved south last weekend where the eight round series made its second stop for the GP of Portugal. Turning out to be an extremely difficult event due to challenging special tests and heavy rain on day two, no single rider managed to claim a double class victory as top honours were shared in all classes. In Enduro 1 Simone Albergoni and Ivan Cervantes claimed a win each while Johnny Aubert and Juha Salminen were the men to beat in E2. In the Enduro 3 category two-stroke riders dominated with Samuli Aro topping day one and Christophe Nambotin winning day two.
THE second round of the '08 World Enduro Championship proved to be one of the toughest world championship events for some time, according to many of the riders taking part in the GP of Portugal as a challenging mix of bad weather and demanding Portuguese special tests left all riders pleased to see the end of the two-day event.
Coming just two weeks after the season opener in Sweden, the GP of Portugal, staged in Vale de Cambra, close to Porto, saw an unusually high number of riders run into troubles during the course of the two days, especially on day two as heavy rain turned the event's motocross test into a quagmire.
In Enduro 1, top honours were split between Italian Simone Albergoni and Spaniard Ivan Cervantes. On day one Albergoni, who made his best ever start to a WEC campaign two weeks ago with solid results at the GP of Sweden, just managed to edge ahead of Finn Mika Ahola with the two riders separated by less than three seconds.
On day two it was Cervantes that got the upper hand as he squeezed ahead of Albergoni with Ahola third.
At the end of the first day less than 12 seconds separated the three riders on the E1 podium. With next to nothing separating Yamaha rider Albergoni from Honda's Ahola, reigning Enduro 3 world champion Ivan Cervantes brought his KTM home less than ten seconds behind Ahola as the three riders placed comfortably ahead of Finnish WEC newcomer Eero Remes.
Day two saw the same three riders finish on the podium but with Cervantes, surprisingly considering the wet and muddy conditions, finishing best. Five seconds up on Albergoni, Ahola claimed the third and final podium position with Remes fourth, just as he was on day one.
The first day went really well for me, apart from two small falls, explained Albergoni. The second day was much harder because the tests and the course was really difficult. I crashed on the tyres in the extreme test, which cost me some time. I think I could have won again if it wasn't for that.
Looking to put his disappointing WEC opening round DNF behind him Tom Sagar finished eighth in the E1 class on day one before jumping up the results sheet on day two with a fifth place finish. Just five seconds behind Tom on day one was Husqvarna mounted Daryl Bolter. Competing in the E1 class for the first time Bolter looked to be heading towards an even better result on day two but crashed heavily and was forced to retire while running in sixth.
The smallest winning margin of any class in Portugal was in Enduro 2 on day one as Yamaha's Johnny Aubert finished less than one second ahead of seven-time world champion Juha Salminen. With nothing to separate the two riders throughout the day,
Juha later admitted that he'd been struggling with the suspension set-up on his KTM while Aubert looked settled in the dry conditions. Continuing his impressive results during his first season of senior WEC competition, Joakim Ljunggren placed third, but over two minutes behind the leading duo.
With his suspension problems sorted on day two Salminen turned the tables on Aubert and claimed a 30 second winning margin. With Ljunggren forced out of the event with an electrical problem his Husaberg team-mate Valtteri Salonen placed third, but like Ljunggren on day one was unable to challenge either Salminen or Aubert.
It has been a really hard race, admitted Salminen at the end of day two. Both the special tests and the time controls were really tough. There wasn't a lot of time at the end of each time control, maybe just two, three or four minutes, so we didn't get much time to rest. I enjoyed it though it was a real enduro race. The motocross test became like a second extreme test because it was so wet, muddy and rutted. It wasn't easy being the first rider onto each of the tests.
Continuing his good form from Sweden, KTM's Samuli Aro headed an all-KTM trio at the head of the Enduro 3 class results on day one as he placed ahead of his team-mate Marko Tarkkala while Markus Kehr claimed Germany's first WEC podium finish in ten years.
The top of Enduro 3 class results was an all two-stroke affair on day two as Gas Gas mounted Christophe Nambotin claimed his first senior WEC victory. Leading home Aro by some 22 seconds, Nambotin gave Gas Gas their first WEC victory since 2004.
Day one was difficult for me, admitted Aro. I made two crashes straight away in the first lap but I managed to win, which was really good. After a disappointing first lap the rest of the day went ok, but I didn't feel really comfortable on my bike.
WORLD ENDURO CHAMPIONSHIP
Rd 2 Vale de Cambra, Portugal
DAY ONE
ENDURO ONE: 1 Simone Albergoni (Yamaha) 50:11.12, 2 Mika Ahola (Honda) 50:13.65, 3 Ivan Cervantes (KTM) 50:22.92, 4 Eero Remes (KTM) 50:56.46, 5 Maurizio Micheluz (Yamaha) 51:07.91, 6 Marc Germain (Yamaha) 51:15.24, 7Christobal Guerrero (Yamaha) 51:25.55, 8 Tom SAGAR (KTM) 52:24.94, 9 Daryl BOLTER (Husqvarna) 52:30.13, 10 Mike Hartmann (KTM) 52:43.00,...
ENDURO TWO: 1 Johnny Aubert (Yamaha) 49:13.71, 2 Juha Salminen (KTM) 49:14.30, 3 Joakim Ljunggren (Husaberg) 51:18.58, 4 Alessandro Belometti (KTM) 51:20.26, 5 Fabio Mossini (Honda) 51:51.68, 6 Nicolas Paganon (Aprilia) 52:0.71, 7 Fabrizio Dini (Yamaha) 52:08.31, 8 Rodrig Thain (TM) 52:12.27, 9 Jari Mattila (Honda) 52:13.81, 10 Nicolas Deparrois (Gas Gas) 52:36.47,...
ENDURO THREE: 1 Samuli Aro (KTM) 50:55.42, 2 Marko Tarkkala (KTM) 51:06.96, 3 Marcus Kehr (KTM) 51:19.94, 4 Christophe Nambotin (Gas Gas) 51:25.46, 5 Fabien Planet (KTM) 51:28.46, 6 Sebastien Guillaume (Husqvarna) 51:40.74, 7 Bjorne Carlsson (Husaberg) 51:52.62, 8 Stefan Merriman (Aprilia) 52:06.37, 9 Xavier Galindo (KTM) 52:13.72, 10 Antoine Letellier (Aprilia) 52:16.88,... 17 Euan McCONNELL (TM) 55:38.28, 18 Gordon Clarke (TM) 58:52.89,...
ENDURO JUNIOR: 1 Marc Bourgeois (Husqvarna) 51:28.17, 2 Oriol Mena (???) 52:33.30, 3 Oscar Balletti (Honda) 53:12.63, 4 Carlos Andreu (KTM) 53:29.69, 5 Simon WAKELY (Husqvarna) 53:44.57, 6 Greg EVANS (KTM) 54:24.52, 7 Thomas Oldrati (KTM) 51:25.65, 8 Lorenzo Santolino (KTM) 53:27.34, 9 Lucas Puerta (Yamaha) 54:24.09, 10 Bert Mayer (BMW) 55:52.34,... 12 Ashley WOOD (Honda) 58:27.00,...
DAY TWO
ENDURO ONE: 1 Ivan Cervantes (KTM) 53:59.09, 2 Simone Albergoni (Yamaha) 54:04.60, 3 Mika Ahola (Honda) 54:28.51, 4 Eero Remes (KTM) 55:06.03, 5 Tom Sagar (KTM) 56:11.66, 6 Cristobal Guerrero (Yamaha) 56:42.42, 7 Paulo Felicia (Kawasaki) 58:07.58, 8 Jordan Curvalle (Suzuki) 58:19.17, 9 Luca Cherubini (TM) 58:34.15, 10 Fernando Ferreira (Yamaha) 1.00:27.83,...
ENDURO TWO: 1 Juha Salminen (KTM) 54:12.03, 2 Johnny Aubert (Yamaha) 54:43.01, 3 Valtteri Salonen (Husaberg) 56:09.00, 4 Alessandro Belometti (KTM) 56:09.27, 5 Nicolas Paganon (Aprilia) 56:27.15, 6 Fabrizio Dini (Yamaha) 57:09.97, 7 Simo Kirssi (BMW) 57:20.95, 8 Jari Mattila (Honda) 58:05.47, 9 Fabio Mossini (Honda) 58:32.42, 10 Rodrig Thain (TM) 58:56.35...
ENDURO THREE: 1 Christophe Nambotin (Gas Gas) 55:17.58, 2 Samuli Aro (KTM) 55:40.23, 3 Marcus Kehr (KTM) 55:43.86, 4 Stefan Merriman (Aprilia) 55:49.05, 5 Marko Tarkkala (KTM) 56:11.82, 6 Fabien Planet (KTM) 56:31.41, 7 Bjorne Carlsson (Husaberg) 56:43.32, 8 Sebastien Guillaume (Husqvarna) 57:20.92, 9 Anders Eriksson (BMW) 57:25.05, 10 Xavier Galindo (KTM) 58:21.19,... 12 Euan McCONNELL (TM) 1:00:06.88,...
ENDURO JUNIOR: 1 Thomas Oldrati (KTM) 55:.29, 2 Marc Bourgeois (Husqvarna) 56:28.39, 3 Anti Hellsten (Husqvarna) 59:32.84, 4 Victor Guerrero (KTM) 59:54.91, 5 Lucas Puerta (Yamaha) 1:00:40.82, 6 Simon WAKELY (Husqvarna) 1:00:43.01, 7 Lorenzo Santolino (KTM) 1:00:59.55, 8 Martin Kuklik (KTM) 1:03:37.35, 9 Bert Mayer (BMW) 1:03:32.43, 10 Adrian Metge (Husqvarna) 1:05:08.68, 11 Ollie MOYCE (Yamaha) 1:07:13.23,...
For full report pictures see T+MX NEWS, Friday, April 4, 2008