Gas Gas No. 1 rider, Adam Raga was unable to repeat this Sunday in Palma de Mallorca the excellent results he had scored a week earlier in Madrid, after losing any opportunity to contest the victory in the very first minute of the Trial, scoring his only “5” of the night. This fifth round of the X-Trial World Championship was marked precisely by easily manageable zones that prevented the top riders differentiating themselves from the others, so any little mistake made it impossible to recover.
After qualifying without penalty, Raga was able to start before last in the semi-final, but he had no luck in the parallel race or in the opening section, a mistake that would haunt him until the end. Indeed, the last phase of the trial began with another round of very tight parallel races and unfortunately for Adam, he dropped three more points, that put him in the position of depending only on the other rider’s mistakes to get to the podium. After dropping just two points in the last three zones, the Gas Gas rider ended the trial a single point behind Takahisa Fujinami, who was third after Toni Bou and Albert Cabestany.
Fellow Gas Gas rider Loris Gubian also qualified well, but his trial began identically to Raga’s with problems at the entrance of the opening section. A small error in the fourth section prevented him from entering the final round with his team leader, although he finally obtained a valuable fifth place in front of Jeroni Fajardo which puts him closer to Fajardo in the general qualifying prior to the remaining rounds in Milan on the 17th and Paris on the 31st of March.
Adam Raga: "I cannot be satisfied because that was not what I expected from this race. However, I cannot be angry, because I have done nothing wrong. In fact, we had a good trial with the exception of the entry in section one and the parallel races. The final scores have been proof that it was very easy with areas in which it was impossible to make a difference, so any little mistake made it very difficult to recover.
In these circumstances, the parallel races have become the decisive factor, but today I have not done too bad, because I have been within touching distance of winning. I think this has been one of those races where we can say that we lacked a bit of luck, because any little mistake could be fatal, and it has been. It was not a bad race, but a bad result. Now it's back to focus on work and train with as much, or more, intensity than ever to recover next week in Milan".