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Husaberg factory team
all ready for a new season

After a week of intense testing in Spain the riders of the Husaberg Factory Team are looking forward to the start of the 2011 EWC. For the 2011 season the Husaberg Factory Team is lining up new riders, new machinery and new team partners.

New riders
The two new riders, Pierre-Alexandre Renet and Mathias Bellino, are both from France, both former MX riders and both riding the well established Husaberg FE 450 both in the French Enduro Championship as well as the EWC. Pierre-Alexandre, better known as Pela, is Husaberg's sole factory rider in the highly competitive E2 class in 2011. As he finished 4th in the championship last year his goal is clearly to finish on the podium in 2011. Mathias makes his debut in Enduro and is Husaberg's sole factory rider in the Junior's competition. He is looking forward to a season full of new experiences.

"Pela and Mathias integrated themselves into the team really well and will also push Joakim and Oriol to raise their level. Although Pela didn't do a lot of riding since his shoulder surgery yet he is already back to the speed he showed end of last season. Also Mathias has a really good speed on fast tests, but he still has to learn a lot in Enduro. For Joakim it's the first time that he has a team mate who is faster than him, so this should give him additional motivation to improve." Team Manager Thomas Gustavsson commented after the first common test of all team riders.

New machinery
Staying with the team in 2011 are the former Junior World Champions Joakim Ljunggren from Sweden and Oriol Mena from Spain. Oriol stays in the big-bore E3 class but changes to the new Husaberg TE 300 2-stroke bike for 2011.
He is joined by Joakim who, for the first time in his racing career, also moves up to the E3 class and, after many successful years aboard the Husaberg FE 450, also makes the change to the TE 300 2-stroke machine. So far this move has proven successful as Joakim managed to better his 2010 result and finished runner-up in the 2011 Indoor Enduro World Championship.

New partners
Alongside the long-standing cooperations with it's team partners the Husaberg Factory Team is happy to present two new partners who will play an important role in the team's appearance as the riding gear of all factory riders is now provided by Shot and the rider's helmets are provided by Scorpion Exo.

Pre-EWC preparation
Pela and Mathias had their Husaberg racing premiere last weekend at the traditional Enduro de Champagne Mouton where Pela won and Mathias finished in 3rd place. On the coming weekend they will continue their program at the Enduro de Sourdeval.

Joakim has been staying in Spain since end of January, originally to keep preparing for the remaining IEWC races, but as those were cancelled he made a trip home to snowy Sweden two weeks ago to race and win the first round of the Swedish Championship. This week he is on his way to Sardinia for the first round of the Italian Championship which is followed by round 2 the following weekend.

The toughest racing program during the winter was run by Oriol Mena as the Spanish XC Championship was extended from 3 to 5 rounds. After 4 rounds Oriol is leading the championship with 4 wins and just has to finish inside the points in the final round on March 19th to defend his title. The weekend after he will race at round 1 of the Sp anish Enduro Championship were he's looking at winning the E3 title after finishing runner-up last year.

EWC 2011
The EWC 2011 will kick off on April 1st with the Supertest in Ponts, Spain. The championship will take the Husaberg Factory Team to 8 rounds in 8 different countries including the Asian part of Turkey. Because of the presidential elections in Turkey on Sunday 12th of June the race had to be moved to Friday and Saturday.

The EWC campaign will take an 8-week summer brake after the GP of Romania on 9th and 10th of June, but the riders will not have a lot of time for holidays because the 2011 ISDE will be run in Kotka-Hamina, Finland from 8th to 13th of August.