FINAL
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And it continues mercilessly as he gradually dismantles, demotivates and dominates the competition. Manuel Lettenbichler doesn’t let up and, with his fourth win of the season after a total of five races, secures a lead of 24 points over the now extremely consistent Brit Mitch Brightmore, who is always on guard. The young Brit is just waiting for Bayern to make a careless mistake so he can strike immediately. Manuel Lettenbichler had already announced him as his successor in the Hardenduro World Championship at the Silver Kings in the USA – Mitch had won.
But also at the ABESTONE HARD ENDURO in Italy, Manuel Lettenbichler made it clear that it will be a while before he passes the reins to the young wild ones. Because first of all, he upset Mitch Brightmore a whopping six minutes after six rounds in the grand finale. For Teodor Kabakchiev it was just under eight minutes and James Moore got a crisp 12 minutes. More dominance is actually not possible. And what was wrong with Billy Bolt? He struggled with a dropped drive chain, but somehow he didn’t really get used to the extremely technical course.
That was probably the reason why many participants couldn’t complete the six rounds. In total there were only five gold riders who completed six laps! And then there was Letti, who was on average one minute per lap faster than his closest rival.
But the fight was just as tough between Teodor Kabakchiev, James Moore and Mario Roman, because after all it was about P3. But only the Bulgarian Teodor Kabakchiev managed to improve on his factory Sherco and secure the final podium place. He was able to gain a whopping four and a half minutes on his closest rival, James Moore.
Moore’s fourth place was the Gold Junior squad’s best and Mario Roman finished fifth for the MR74 Racing Team, making him the last driver in the field to complete the six laps.
One lap down, Lorenzo Gandola led the rest of the field in P6, ahead of Ashton Brightmore, Thomas Scales, Sonny Goggia and Eddie Karlsson. Billy Bolt, meanwhile, only finished twelfth, but his best lap was the third fastest in the entire Gold class. His months-long absence from the racing circuit due to illness is obviously still having an understandable effect.
James Moore’s result had great significance in the FIM Hard Enduro Junior World Championship. The South African got the maximum junior points in Abestone and thus holds P2 with a whopping 147 points. This puts him within seven points of Ashton Brightmore and increased the pressure to the maximum. Toby Shaw remains in third place with 87 points, Marc Fernandez Serra, Thomas Scales and Luke John Walker are only two points behind him and will most likely have nothing to do with the title fight if Ashton and James Moore don’t make a serious mistake.
Manuel Lettenbichler: ‚What a great race. The crowd here in Italy was great and it felt like there were even more people there than last year. It’s really cool to see how the sport continues to grow in Italy and internationally. The event and the tracks were great. The route was easy to ride, which made for an intense but also entertaining race. It was hard on the body, but I think we handled the weekend really well. It’s pretty crazy here for another one To get the win, especially with such a big gap to second place, I had a small crash in the river towards the end of the race when I pushed a little too hard and tried to increase the gap to Mitch Brightmore. The crowd was great and thank you to everyone out there with the chainsaws and all the crazy support in the forest – Grazie a tutti!‘
Billy Bolt: ‚It was a difficult day and, to be honest, a difficult weekend overall. There were some good moments and I expected a lot more from myself, but I’m still having quite a bit of trouble with the speed. This was my fifth race after four months of not being on the bike. So there’s still a lot I need to work on and improve on. I’m actually looking forward to a short break now because they’re giving us two weeks before we go to the Roof in South Africa. That’s a bit of a recovery for now and then keep training hopefully we can make some good progress and finish the year strong.‘
ABESTONE FINALE – GOLD
ABESTONE FINALE – SILVER
ABESTONE FINALE – BRONCE
OVERALL STANDINGS after 5 from 8 races (TOP-15)
OVERALL
JUNIOR
WOMEN
YOUTH
Source / Pictures: FIM Hard Enduro World Championship, Macphtos
