KTM has a strong WEC round in Spain

From KTM

KTM Enduro Factory team rider Samuli Aro of Finland continued his early season domination of the E3 big class in round five in Spain, giving him four victories and a second place so far this season. Team boss Fabio Farioli praised Aro saying the Finnish rider was "very impressive" on Saturday over the hard and dusty Spanish circuit. "It was not such a difficult race, today," Farioli said. "But the surface was hard and it was extremely dusty."

Italian Alessandro Belometti came in third in the E2 class for his first podium of the season. The Italian rider, quite at home on the dry and dusty conditions in Spain came close to victory but sacrificed 2.5 second in the last test and had to settle for the minor podium place.

Teammate Juha Salminen, who has won two of the four previous rounds and taken podiums in the other two, led the E2 race on Saturday into the ninth of eleven tests then had to retire because of technical difficulties.

Salminen is now second in the standings behind Jonny Aubert, trailing him by 22 points. Ivan Cervantes rose to the occasion in front of his home crowd in Spain and secured second podium place in E1. "It was a big fight between Ivan and Ahola," reported KTM team boss Fabio Farioli. Ivan lost five second in the beginning stages of the race then both of them were making the same times in the other tests and he wasn't able to make it up." Cervantes was riding in front of his home crowd which showed their enthusiastic support for him. Tom Sager, who came up from the junior class in 2007 to join Cervantes in the KTM team finished in ninth place. Farioli said he is still adjusting to riding in the senior division and is yet to show what he can really do.

The race, held just 50 km from Barcelona attracted a large crowd on Enduro enthusiasts who will be out in force again on Sunday for round six over the same hard and dusty terrain.