2022 EnduroGP of Slovakia results: Ruprecht wins by 0.45seconds from Holcombe on day 2

Results from the 2022 EnduroGP of Slovakia where Wil Ruprecht held on in the mud from a hard-charging Steve Holcombe by just 0.45 seconds for victory on day two at round five of the Enduro World Championship season.

2022 EnduroGP of Slovakia, day 2 in a nutshell:

More rain overnight, plus the baked hard ground underneath both kept conditions tricky on day two of the Slovakian GP. It made fascinating viewing, not just for the inevitable crashes, but mainly to watch the best riders in the world switching up their lines in the tests to seek out the hard-to-find grip. It was like dancing on ice at times.
Overall GP results don’t get much closer than the 0.45 seconds gap which the win came down to. That’s all the margin Wil Ruprecht had at the final timing beam as he took away the narrowest of scratch and E2 class wins over Steve Holcombe. “I built a good gap in the first lap but that took a lot of energy out of me and the last lap was just a sufferfest.” Explained Ruprecht. “The long tests really took it out of us in the end but hats off to Steve for his riding and I’m really happy to go 1-1 here in Slovakia and close the points gap.”
Steve Holcombe was oh, so close to taking his first GP win after what feels like donkey’s years. The Beta rider looked back to his smooth and confident best in the conditions and ended the day with two determined test times to quash Ruprecht’s lead: “The long tests suited me well this weekend and I really enjoyed the GP. I made a few too many mistakes this morning – the first and second Extreme tests I made an absolute meal of. But other than that I’m pumped to be battling for the win again. Two days on the podium, I can’t complain.”
Third scratch and third in E2 (making it an E2 class 1-2-3 overall) and looking much more like himself today was Josep Garcia: “It was a difficult weekend for me, the results are quite good but when you come back from injury it is difficult. I didn’t have expectations. I started to find my rhythm but each day I lost a lot of power and strength in the long tests on the last laps. I had some crashes but overall I was happy to be fighting in class and for the overall today.”
Finishing fourth for his best result of the season, Thomas Oldrati showed all his experience in the tricky tests. The Honda RedMoto rider took a narrow class win, just 2.4s ahead of the championship leader Verona at a GP with find memories for the Italian: “For sure it’s not easy because of the conditions but I enjoyed it very much. I am happy also because Slovakia is where I took my first win in 2010, so after 12 years I can say I am still here and still winning.”
Fifth overall – his worst finish of the season – represented an “up and down weekend” says Andrea Verona: “I made some mistakes which cost me victory but it was easy in the conditions and a lot of riders were making mistakes. Day two was a little bit worse, I lost a lot of time in the first Enduro test which was hard to recover from. So, not the best results but I can learn from this and let’s see next week in Hungary.”
Brad Freeman was again the master of the Extreme test, mastering the slick logs and rocks in the shortest test of the day. Brad ended up P6 and E3 winner ahead of Mikael Persson.
A solid second half of the day secured Roni Kytonen the Junior class win ahead of Zach Pichon with day one winner Max Ahlin third. “I started a little slow but in the second lap, and the Enduro test, I tried to push a lot.” Said the Honda RedMoto rider.“ I was able to take over the lead. I knew I had to be fast again the last Cross test to keep ahead of Zach because he is always fast there.”
Kevin Cristino turned the tables after dropping off the podium yesterday. The Fantic rider took a 22 seconds advantage at the finish ahead of points leader, team-mate and title rival Harry Edmondson who claims another consistent 2-2 result for the weekend.
Adam Tomiczek claimed the double day win in the Open class, 41s to the better of his Polish compatriot Maciej Wieckowski who narrowly came out on top of a three-way fight for the podium places with Jiri Hadek and Alejandro Ceballos-Escalera Lopez (who all finished in this order at the flag).