Double For Toni Bou at British Grand Prix

Nord Vue, Cumbria in north west England played host to the British GP, and witnessed the fourth consecutive win for Toni Bou in the World Trial Championship, bringing his season’s tally to five. With the win Bou, once again, consolidates his leadership in the world championship, heading home from Britain ten points ahead of his nearest rival, with just three races to go before the end of the season.
 
Toni Bou got off to a strong start, on this, the second day of the Nord Vue race, as the rain held off and more benevolent conditions prevailed, thus allowing less complicated bike handling. There was, nevertheless, very little margin for error. The Repsol Honda Team rider skillfully managed the course, and once again dominated the entire race, committing just one fault in section 8 where he was unable to make it through in any of the three attempts. With these three failures, as well as an error in section 4, the Montesa Cota 4RT rider chalked up a total of 20 penalty points.
 
Yesterday, Takahisa Fujinami took a knock on his already injured knee, and suffered today as a consequence; particularly in the earlier part of the race before getting fully warmed up. As a result the Japanese rider was penalised for various faults. On laps two and three, the rider was able to limit the damage, although not enough to finish higher than fifth place. Fujinami keeps fourth place in the championship standings.
 
There will be very little time to rest for the Repsol Honda Team after this, the sixth race, as the World Trial Championship heads off for the France GP next Sunday July 27 to the La Mongie ski resort in the Pyrenees.

I’m really pleased with the way that it’s gone this weekend, and we couldn’t ask for any better than two wins in two days. We’ve now opened up a ten point gap in the championship, and we are on the right course, even though there is a long way still to go. We will be training hard this week to be ready for France, and hope to keep the success going. Today, I had one little problem in section 8 with three failures, as I followed the wrong route, and I picked up 15 marks there. Luckily, the rest of the trial went well, and I was able to gain some advantage.

I started the race afraid of how by knee would respond. Before I managed to get properly warmed up, I had made a few mistakes; maybe because I didn’t have the confidence that I would be able to make it all the way through the trial. But as the race went on, the knee stopped causing me pain. It was a pity that I couldn’t do a good first lap, especially with the faults in sections 4 and 7, that would have helped improve my overall position considerably. But, in spite of the final result, I’m quite satisfied with the job done, as it is a place where it’s easy to make mistakes.