08/08/19 – Can Jack Peace climb the ladder to success?
The FIM Trial World Championship is specially structured to provide a series of stepping stones through the ranks and one rider who’s taking full advantage of this forward-thinking approach is Britain’s Jack Peace (Sherco).
The 19-year-old dominated the 2016 FIM Trial 125cc Cup with 10 wins and three runner-up finishes from 13 starts and after almost three seasons in Trial2 he’s established himself as a front-runner who has his sights set on the premier TrialGP class.
Currently sitting sixth with one round to go, Jack kicked off his 2019 campaign with a strong second at the opening round in Italy before a string of disappointing results. Despite solid finishes at the last two rounds in Portugal and France he still needs to pull back six points on Francesc Moret (Montesa) at TrialGP Spain if he’s to match his fifth-placed finish last year.
“It’s a really competitive class and it’s all really close at every round,” he said. “There are a lot of good riders. It was just as competitive last season but this year Alex Ferrer has dropped down so there’s an extra rider to beat.
“I was really happy with my result in Italy but then the middle of the season didn’t really go to plan for me but recently I’ve come on form and had a pretty good result in Portugal and didn’t do bad in France.
“Overall I’m not all that happy with my results. A lot of my riding’s been good but I’ve been just missing out on podium places. I feel like I’m riding better now than I was at the beginning of the season but with so many good riders you have to be absolutely on it – if you make one or two mistakes that can be the difference between coming second or third or sixth or seventh.”
A big change for Jack – and for his big brother Dan who’s contesting his debut season in TrialGP – was the switch to Sherco in the off-season following five years with Gas Gas.
“I’m enjoying riding the Sherco. It’s a really good bike. It was quite a big change for me after so long with Gas Gas and it always takes time to get used to a different bike because they’re all a bit different but I’m getting there.”
As for the future, well, Jack has a definite game plan in place.
“At the moment I’m planning on riding Trial2 again next year to try and hopefully win it or at least be in the top three and then the goal after that is to move up to the TrialGP class and see how far I can get in that.”
