Making his 2023 competitive debut, Red Bull KTM Factory Racing’s Josep Garcia has won both Enduro1 and the overall ‘Scratch’ categories at round one of the Spanish Enduro Championship held in Santiago de Compostela, A Coruna. After deciding to make the switch to E1 and the KTM 250 EXC-F for this season, Garcia has firmly thrown down the gauntlet to his rivals by winning all but one of the 22 special tests held over the course of the weekend.
Garcia made his intentions for the weekend clear right from the start by topping the timesheets on the Friday night Supertest. Completing the short course over one-second clear of his nearest rival, Josep then went into the first full day of competition on Saturday full of confidence.
Immediately feeling comfortable on his KTM 250 EXC-F, Garcia was able to push hard on the dry, dusty conditions. And despite having a few crashes along the way, the 26-year-old mastered the loose rocks and slippery roots that made up the varied terrain to win 11 of the 12 special tests and take the day-one victory by an impressive one minute and 29 seconds.
Day two in Spain went very much like the first. Although riders raced for one lap less than on Saturday, Josep was still able to open up a large time advantage over his rivals. Going on to win each of Sunday’s nine tests, the Red Bull KTM rider secured the overall win by just over one minute, making it a two-day clean sweep for the 2022 ISDE winner.
With his confidence high, Josep now looks ahead to the second round of his national series, the Oliana Enduro on March 17-19, which will aid in his preparations for round one of the 2023 FIM EnduroGP World Championship held just two weeks later in San Remo, Italy.
Josep Garcia: “I haven’t had an opportunity to ride the KTM 250 EXC-F in race conditions so far this year, so this weekend has been great! We have very good base settings and, although it’s clear we still have some settings to work on, we’re definitely going in the right direction. I'm really happy to start the season like this, taking the wins on both days. Saturday's times were very good and on Sunday, I felt just as fast, and the times came out the same. We made some small modifications to the suspension over the pre-season to help me race more consistently and stop mistakes. Despite it being a technical race with a lot of heavily rutted specials, I’ve felt really confident on the bike, so the changes seem to be working well. I’m really happy with how everything is going, so we’ll continue working hard into the second round of the Spanish championship and then look ahead to the first world round in late March.”
Results – 2023 Spanish Enduro Championship – Round 1, Al Coruna
Day 1
Enduro1
1. Josep Garcia, KTM, 1:10:20.31
2. Sergio Navarro, Husqvarna, 1:11:49.59
3. Pau Tomas, Rieju, 1:14:47.40
Overall
1. Josep Garcia, KTM, 1:10:20.31
2. Sergio Navarro, Husqvarna, 1:11:49.59
3. Zachary Pichon, Sherco, 1:11:49.82
Day 2
Enduro1
1. Josep Garcia, KTM, 51:58.30
2. Sergio Navarro, Husqvarna, 53:13.35
3. Pau Tomas, Rieju, 55:55.36
Overall
1. Josep Garcia, KTM, 51:58.30
2. Marc Sans, Yamaha, 53:04.42
3. Sergio Navarro, Husqvarna, 53:13.35