The Vertigo team showed improvements in Portugal. The riders of the green marque come away from the third and fourth rounds of the FIM TrialGP World Championship having shown progress in some of the results.
The brand’s official rider in the premiere class, Italian Matteo Grattarola, had a solid weekend at the TrialGP of Portugal, held in the small town of Gouveia located in the Serra da Estrela. The course featured six very slippery sections in the river running through the town, which the Vertigo Nitro and Nitro RSR took to like a fish to water; the other sections, located on the hillsides, also had several tricky passages. The Portuguese trial was fairly demanding on the riders. Grattarola improved substantially over the two days of competition, picking up valuable points that allow him to climb in the overall standings. With the two fifth place finishes, the Italian now holds sixth spot in the rankings, just one point behind fifth place.
Another upbeat result was Alfie Lampkin’s podium finish. On Sunday, the rider replicated the third place achieved earlier in Arteixo, having started the GP with some issues that led to a sixth-place finish. Elsewhere, in the Trial2 category, Pau Martínez once again stood out with two top ten finishes in the most hotly contested category. Pau lies in eighth place and hopes to improve further in the coming rounds. Italian Mattia Spreafico is still working to add points in the table. He narrowly missed out on doing so on Sunday, but on Saturday posted a positive eleventh position. Catalan Adrià Mercadé, part of the RFME team, also turned out a better showing on Sunday, while Belgian Emile Mattheeuws failed to score.
In Motegi, the following one
The next round of the FIM TrialGP World Championship will take place on 20 and 21 May with the TrialGP of Japan. The Motegi circuit will host the competition for TrialGP, Trial2 and TrialGPWomen riders only.
Matteo Grattarola, Vertigo Factory rider: “Fifth is good, but we wanted more. I want more. I have to keep training, that’s obvious to me. I want to be steadier, more consistent and ride the trial I want to do. I don’t think I’m that far from the podium so I think it’s possible. We will train and compete in Italy before going to Japan, where I hope I can keep improving in the standings.”
