05/08/18 - Grattarola, Youly and Sembenini at Santo Stefano d'Aveto, Italy

Italian Matteo Grattarola (Sembenini Montesa) won the fourth round of the FIM Europe Trial Championship and he is very close to be crown as with one round left his lead increased to 75 points. French Kieran Touly (Sherco) and Italian Piero Sembenini (Montesa) triumphed in Junior and Over 40 classes.

In the hottest days of the year, all the European riders appreciated the fresh breeze that Santo Stefano d'Aveto, small village, situated at almost 1000mt on sea level, chosen for this penultimate round, offered.

Grattarola - as we already announced - did not like easy sections and never as today he grasped the victory for a while and due to a big mistake of English Dan Peace (Gas Gas) able to keep him in check until the last section of the last lap. Peace rode very well in the whole competition. He was leading at the turning point thanks to his card with just 3 penalties. Grattarola was not distant: 7 marks, 2 ahead of Spanish Francesc Moret (Montesa).

Same music in the second lap until section 4 where Grattarola took an heavy five. Peace had the victory on his hands. Grattarola nothing to loose. And in the last 3 sections the imponderable happened. Peace lost 7 points: 5 in last one, throwing away a victory almost in his pocket. Grattarola repeated the 3 cleans and thanks him for his third win and his stretching of other 30 points on Moret arrived third.

False step for Italian leader Sergio Piardi (Beta) in the Junior class. His number one rival, French Kieran Touly (Sherco) .rode with incredible calm and did not make any consistent mistake. He scored 4 in the first lap and 3 in the second. Piardi also shared the same points at half competition but then two fives in the second part costed him to slid in third position, overtaken by his country mate, winner in the Youth class the day before, Carloalberto Rabino , that in this case helped the French rider to close his gap to Piardi. Now Piardi has 370 points, Touly 340.

Between the “over 40” riders, great surprise: for the first time in there series Italian Piero Sembenini (Montesa) topped the podium and beat German leader Markus Kipp (TRS), but bad luck for Teutonic rider was that other two riders arrived between the twos. It meant that in one solo race all the advantage of Kipp was almost reset. He is still leading with 345 points but Sembenini is behind by 5 points. Second today after a strong recovering in the second lap, Walter Feltrinelli (Montesa) who beat country man Alessandro Brocco (Scorpa) , third today and in the overall standings, too.

In the International 2 class, on top local rider Elia Ansaloni (Beta) while in the most populated International 1, the winner was Luca Poncia (Beta), the same of the yesterday Youth International.

The fifth and last round will be held at Bilstein, Belgium, next Sunday.
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Grattarola ad un passo dal titolo

...non perdetevi il focus di Motosprint la prossima settimana ...foto degli altri italiani e video in settimana...