2025 FIM X-Trial World Championship Round One Results

Cycle News Staff | December 22, 2024

GasGasFactory Racing’s Jaime Busto claimed the overall victory at the opening round of the 2025 FIM X-Trial World Championship in Madrid Spain. Toni Bou (Repsol Honda Trial Team) finished four marks behind him, while Adam Raga (Sherco) completed the podium by virtue of a run-off against teammate Benoit Bincaz.

Jaime Busto 2025 FIM X-Trial Rnd 1 Madrid — **Jaime Busto kicked off the 2025 FIM X-Trial World Championship with a win in Madrid.**

In a Grand Final characterized by its extreme level of difficulty, there were never more than six marks separating all four competitors. Ultimately, Section Two proved decisive in Jaime Busto’s win; he managed a clean there while each of his rivals failed. By successfully defending this lead, Busto had sewn up victory before his final ride.

Toni Bou found himself in a close-fought battle for second after a dramatic Section One failure. A further dab in Section Four where the other three Finalists were clean left him fourth heading into the last Section, but he was the only rider successfully through and nosed in front of the Sherco duo by just a single mark.

2025 FIM X-Trial Adam Raga — **Sherco’s Adam Raga took third after successfully winning a tie-breaker section against his teammate, Benoit Bincaz.**

Adam Raga made a fairy-tale return to the Palacio Vistalegre, where he was crowned World Champion for the first time aged 21 back in 2003. On this visit, he delivered his first podium in ten Rounds since X-Trial Bordeaux last year. Benoit Bincaz missed out on what could have been a third consecutive podium, as he failed the tie-break Section, handing Raga his dream return to the rostrum.

Bincaz had made it to the Final as the last chance qualifier from Q2, eliminating Gabriel Marcelli by a 13.7 second margin including a 10 second time penalty in the new Sprint Format.

Jaime Busto 2025 FIM X-Trial Round 1 — **Busto starts the 2025 season with a win.**

Sondre Haga (GasGas) finished 10 marks away from the qualification cut in Q1, Jack Peace (Sherco) and Miquel Gelabert (Vertigo) one mark further behind in a disappointing start to the season for the Spaniard.

Jaime Busto (1st): “Starting the season with the win is special and to do so in such a demanding Final, where any mistake was vital, makes it even more important. Truthfully I was a little nervous at the start, but the more Sections we went through the better I felt on the bike. Now the important thing is to deliver consistently.”

Toni Bou (2nd): “It has been a tough Final, further complicated by Section One which I felt I completed clean but I was given a five for what I still think was a misunderstanding. From there I rode nervously. But it could have been worse than second place so I now just need to look ahead.”

Adam Raga (3rd): “This podium is very special for me because this is where I was World Champion in 2003 and because this is my last appearance in the Spanish capital before I retire after X-Trial Barcelona. I have proven I am still riding at a high level and I enjoyed myself a lot.”

This is an excerpt from a race report from GasGas…

The first round of the 2025 season introduced riders to the competition’s new format, starting with Q1, in which the top three riders advance straight to the final. Jaime got off to a very strong start, cleaning four of the six sections and receiving just one mark on section three. A mistake on the final section earned Jaime five marks, but his impressive low score overall meant that the Spaniard completed the round in second place.

Thanks to his strong Q1 performance, Busto’s next stop was the newly introduced Superpole to determine the starting order for the final. As the third rider out, Jaime completed the three-section sprint in 53 seconds on his TXT GP 300 to clock the second-fastest time.

The final round went down to the wire, with four riders tackling the six tough sections in front of thousands of Spanish fans. The tricky opening section saw all four competitors receive five marks, but a clean on section two, where everyone else made mistakes, put Busto in the lead. Jaime maintained the top spot for the remainder of the final to claim his first victory of the 2025 season and secure an early championship lead.

Jaime Busto: “I’m super happy to start the season like this with a win! I was a bit nervous in the first round, but I felt really good. In the final I did start off with a mistake, it was a bit of a strange final, but oh well. I was the only one to get through one of the sections with no mistakes, which gave me a lot of confidence, so I’m really happy and looking forward to round two in France!”

Albert Cabestany – GasGas Factory Racing Trial Team Manager: “We couldn’t have asked for a better start to the championship. Jaime’s result is incredible and really well deserved. The team has worked so hard for this, and to lead the championship from the start is exactly where we wanted to be this season. We will keep this momentum going into the new year for round two and beyond.”

The following statement from Bou is from a Honda press release:

“It was a strange day,” said Toni Bou. “We won the first lap and the Super Pole, as well as getting a zero in the first section of the final, but they ended up giving me a five. They had told us that we could skip the final part, but it seems that there was a misunderstanding and that was not the case. It’s a shame because if we had gotten a zero there, we would have had a much greater chance of winning, but the reality is that after that first section I lost my nerve a bit and things didn’t go well. These things happen and you have to learn from them. Luckily, at the last moment we were able to recover to ended up taking second place.”