They have had a four-week break, something that will only be repeated in the trial season (between indoors and the outdoors) in summer, but the X-Trial riders return to action this Saturday with Bou at the helm, both the headlines and the championship. And they will do it at the Arena Nova in Wiener Neustadt in what will be Austria’s return to the World Cup six years after the last time. It ran there from 2015 to 2017 and was going to return earlier, in 2020, but the pandemic disrupted the plans and it has had to wait until now.
Can you imagine who won those three races on Austrian soil? Yeah, Bou. The same that he did in the opening round of the X-Trial last February in Barcelona to start firmly on the road to a new title. But with seven tests to go (the last one, in France, will take place in November) it is still too early to think about him, it is about going step by step and the next thing is to try to add another victory that would mean the 75th victory for the Repsol champion Honda in the Indoor World Cup.
“It is always good to start the season with a victory and we are working to continue in this vein. I have very good memories of my last race in Austria and we really want to come back”, sums up the Catalan before competing in Wiener Neustadt, where his closest rival to begin with will be his partner Marcelli, second in Barcelona and he faces this weekend with the intention of repeating and staying in his wake: “Getting on the podium in the first round of the season gives extra motivation.”
Honda’s rivals
There was no better possible start for Repsol Honda with that double win at home, but They will push from behind so that this is not the case in Austria, especially the two riders that make up that group of four that will fight for all the podiums: Busto and Raga. The one from GasGas was the third in contention in Barcelona, and also the only one who surpassed Bou at some point (he took the first round) and the one from TRRS saw a spectacular run of 43 consecutive podiums stopped (even more than Bou) and will everything possible to get back on it.
This is how the World Cup goes
| Pilot | Equipment | Points | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Toni Bou | Sling | twenty-one |
| 2. | Gabriel Marcelli | Sling | fifteen |
| 3. | Jaime Bust | GasGas | 13 |
| 4. | Adam Raga | TRRS | 9 |
| 5. | Jeroni Fajardo | Sherco | 6 |
