Hixpania Hard Enduro Results: Mani Lettenbichler crowned 2023 HEWC World Champion with victory in Spain

Results from 2023 Hard Enduro World Championship round five, the 24MX Hixpania Hard Enduro in Spain where Red Bull KTM’s Mani Lettenbichler is crowned the 2023 world champion with yet another comfortable victory ahead of Mario Roman and Billy Bolt.

2023 Hixpania Lost Road main race in a nutshell:

As sure as eggs are eggs Mani Lettenbichler claimed the 2023 FIM Hard Enduro World Championship today with his fifth win of the season – maintaining a 100% winning record this season so far across all rounds.
After an early pass on Billy Bolt, Lettenbichler was able to pull clear and carry a gap which no-one could challenge. It has been a remarkable season for the Red Bull KTM rider and with one round remaining in two weeks, on his home soil in Germany, who’s to bet against a historic clean sweep?
“Here I am now, fifth race win in a row for this season and world champion.” Said Mani. “I had to push so hard today. I got a good start and was able to pass Billy almost straight away and from there I just focused and kept up a good rhythm. Honestly, the day could not have gone any better for me, the race was awesome. What can I say? I’m just speechless.”
Six minutes 20 was the comfortable winning margin over Mario Roman claiming another podium for the season with the Spaniard enjoying the home crowd support but complaining about the qualification dust hampering his overall weekend – although riders started pretty much together from inside the cave this morning.
“I’m super-stoked how it went today with the second place,” says Mario, “Mani was flying the whole season so I believe to beat the other guys is like a win for me. The crowd was amazing and with me the whole time and I think we made a good show for them, especially at the end with the last difficult hills, it was super-sketchy and on the limit of riding but we made it happen.”
Billy Bolt didn’t quite have the speed of his two rivals on the main race day, despite taking the qualification race win yesterday. The Husqvarna rider finished a close third in the end but admitted too many mistake early on and to not really having an answer to Mani and Mario.
“It’s been a solid weekend.” Says Billy. “Winning the first two days and ending today on the podium has been good. I felt good in my riding all weekend and can take a lot of positives from that. I wanted to fight for the win today, but to be fair, the top two guys were riding hard too. Stopping Mani from winning the title today was always going to be tough. It would have been nice to take the battle to the final round, but he has been on a super high level all year. However, I have strengthened my second place in the standings heading into the final round, so I will do all I can now to keep that.”
Bolt gained some valuable points to cement his second place in the HEWC standings over Trystan Hart. The Canadian missed a checkpoint yesterday and had his work cut out from a 20th place start today to finish fifth behind Wade Young fourth for Sherco.
Sixth went to the rider with the fastest lap of the day, former winner and last of the riders officially on the same lap as lettenbichler, Alfredo Gomez on the Rieju. Seventh overall goes to Mitchell Brightmore claiming an equally comfortable victory (to Mani) in the FIM Junior category. The SuperEnduro Junior champ took a lap out of his nearest rival which was (as often it seems) his brother Ashton.
“It was really technical today, just trials basically and I’ve ridden a lot of trials so it suited me.” Explains Mitch. “I pushed myself hard and I started in the cave so that helped with a good start position. I managed to come in the top 10 and win the junior so I’m super-happy with my race.”
Look at the scratch results below and you’ll see that P7 placed Mitch ahead of an impressive list of riders including HEWC Junior points leader Matthew Green who finished 14th overall.