Billy Bolt Takes Insurmountable FIM SuperEnduro World Championship Lead with Round 4 Win.
Story: Noel Flatters - Editor - The Enduro Bureau
February 03, 2025
Husqvarna Factory Racing’s Billy Bolt wins Round 4 of the FIM SuperEnduro Championship in Łódź, Poland.
Image Future7 Media, courtesy Husqvarna Factory Racing.
Round 4 of the 2025 FIM SuperEnduro World Championship in Łódž, Poland, marked the halfway point of this year’s season, and coming into it there was absolutely no question at all that Husqvarna Factory Racing’s Billy Bolt is still the big dog when enduro goes inside. Bolt had won the first three rounds with only a P2 moto finish and a P2 SuperPole finish marring his almost perfect start to the campaign.
While we have previously noted that Bolt does make mistakes under pressure this season, we also have to point out that those mistakes don’t matter when no-one can take advantage of them. And (spoiler alert) we saw this again in Round 4. Read on to see how it all went down in Poland.
Key Points
Billy Bolt wins yet another round of the 2025 FIM SuperEnduro World Championship by winning all three motos and grabbing a P2 in the Super Pole time trial. Bolt now holds what is (barring injury) an insurmountable 81-point lead in the overall Championship, and now only needs 18 points to clinch the 2025 title. In other words, he wins it all by taking just a single moto victory over the remaining three rounds.
It was another round of Rule Brittania in Poland with X-Grip Racing Team’s Ashton and Mitchell Brightmore taking 2nd and 3rd ahead of Eddie Karlsson (Stark Future) and Jonny Walker (Triumph Factory Racing).
Polish favourite Dominik Olszowy (Rieju Factory Racing) had another tough night as he came back from an injury sustained in Round 3. Olszowy had picked up P7 and P3 in the first two motos of the night before having to retire with a bike problem in the second corner of the final moto. Although he got 24 points this round, he now sits in 6th overall after his zero points from Round 3. This could lead to some exciting racing from Olszowy over the final rounds as he can chase moto wins without the pressure of defending an overall position.
We did see again that, while Bolt is the dominant force in SuperEnduro, he can be forced into errors when under pressure or trailing.
Bill Bolt (c), Ash Brightmore (l), and Mitch Brightmore (r) on the podium at Round 4 of the FIM SuperEnduro Championship in Łódź, Poland.
Image Future7 Media, courtesy Husqvarna Factory Racing.
Super Pole
The Super Pole time-trials provided our first real look at the amazing track that organizers had put together for Round 4. With a large floor in the arena, they were able to build an exciting lap that included a wide variety of features AND high-speed racing. To top that off, they built a lane up off the floor through the stands, across a short concourse, and back down through the stands to the finish. Overall, it was an incredible layout, which was superbly executed. Hats off to the organizing team!
In the end the Super Pole featured a few small surprises with the main one coming in the form of Triumph Factory Racing’s Jonny Walker emerging with the win after Bolt mistake in the final log jumps of the lap. Stark Future’s Eddie Karlsson picked up 3rd and a single Championship point.
Mitch Brightmore (X-Grip Racing Team) had looked to have a very competitive lap as well until he made a mistake in the same spot as Bolt, which ultimately cost him a spot in the top 3 by 3/10ths of a second.
For added context, it’s important to note that Bolt’s mistake had been a big one, yet he still only lost to Walker 7/100ths. And this was with Walker having a clean lap AND running his first race with a factory engine on his bike.
Triumph Factory Racing’s Jonny Walker finally had a factory engine, but had an up-and-down night in Poland.
Image: Future7Media courtesy Triumph Factory Racing
Analysis
Yet again we saw Billy Bolt dominate the field. But perhaps more so than in previous rounds, the Husqvarna Factory Racing rider has been fighting hard for those wins. As we noted in our introduction, though, he does keep winning.
Bolt comes out of Poland with an insurmountable 81-point lead over Walker, even with three rounds left in the Championship. To put this in perspective, there are a maximum of 33 points that a rider can accumulate in a single round by winning the Super Pole and all three motos. Bolt would need to score 0 points over the final three rounds for Walker to even have a sniff of winning the Championship. Barring some freak catastrophic incident or injury, there is simply no way that this is going to happen. Bolt is simply too devastatingly consistent in his winning ways. We’re lucky to be able to watch such a generational talent doing his thing in SuperEnduro.
Walker holds a 10-point lead over 3rd place Ash Brightmore who is, in turn, 8 points ahead of Mitch Brightmore.
Olszowy has now dropped to 6th overall after a mechanical DNF in moto 3, just six points ahead of Cooper Abbott. While it has been tough to see the 2022 Junior Super Enduro world champion tumble four spots in the overall in two rounds (after his Round 3 injury), this does open things up for him to turn on the jets for moto wins without concern for defending a high overall position.
With Round 5 set to go this weekend in Budapest we’re excited to see how things shake out in the overall behind Bolt.
Moto 1
Moto 1 started with Mitch Brightmore grabbing the holeshot ahead of Bolt and Walker, but Walker’s good start was wasted as he went down in a rock-garden corner and dropping from 1st to 10th, eventually finishing the moto in 6th.
Back at the front of the race Brightmore and Bolt began to extend their lead ahead of Karlsson until Brightmore made a massive mistake in the rocks just as Bolt passed him on lap 4. This mistake also allowed Karlsson to get past and gave Bolt a big lead that he would take to the finish. Karlsson and Brightmore rounded out the top 3 in the moto, with Brightmore’s brother and teammate Ash coming through in 4th ahead of TTR Squadra Corse’s Will Hoare.
This moto highlighted one of our mantras for racing against Billy Bolt… Never ever give that man a lead with a substantial gap as he is unbeatable in that situation. Lesson re-learned.
Moto 2
Moto 2’s reverse gate start saw home-crowd favorite Olszowy taking the holeshot and quickly building a gap over the field. Bolt played his usual Moto 2 start tactic of coming off the line slowly to avoid early race carnage and then rode a relatively casual first 4 laps while making his way up to P4.
Once Bolt got to that 4th position, though, he turned on the afterburners and threw down savage laps five and six with both of those laps coming in under 51 seconds – the only rider other than Olszowy to go below 52 seconds through the race. This got him up to 3rd behind Olszowy and Ash Brightmore and it was an absolute dogfight from there as Olszowy fought to keep his lead over the hard-charging British duo.
Olszowy was clearly fading, though, and was caught with one lap to go. Bolt then made a two-position pass to go from 3rd to 1st, with Brightmore getting past Olszowy at the same time to finish 2nd. Mitch Brightmore and Walker finished 4th and 5th, respectively.
Moto 3
Moto 3 saw Walker taking the holeshot ahead of Bolt and Factory1 Sherco’s Cooper Abbott. Abbot had just returned to Europe from North America where he had the first round of the US Hard Enduro Series in California the previous weekend and attending his mother’s memorial service on the Tuesday before Round 4.
Factory1 Sherco’s Cooper Abbott had a solid night given that he had raced Round 1 of the US Hard Enduro Championship on Sunday and attended his mother’s memorial service on Tuesday back in the USA.
Image: Sport UP Agency courtesy FIM SuperEnduro
Walker and Bolt managed to build a small lap 2 lead over the Brightmore brothers, but that quickly extended out to 4.25 seconds. Walker was showing great speed with his new factory engine as he led Bolt, but he also was making a series of minor mistakes that prevented him from trying break away.
With 2:00 to go, Walker went down in the rock garden corner that had tripped him up in Moto 1, holding up Bolt in the process. Bolt was able to get around but now had Ash Brightmore on his back wheel to deal with. Shortly after we saw another example of Bolt making errors under pressure as he bobbled and allowed Ash through. Ash rode a tremendous race with the lead, holding off Bolt until just before the white flag as they headed up the climb into the stands.
It wasn’t over yet, though, as Bolt made another mistake under pressure from Brightmore but was able to keep it together enough to take the win to complete a 2-1-1-1 night.
Behind the two leaders Walker had been able to come back and make the pass on Mitch Brightmore to finish 3rd, with Karlsson rounding out the top 5.
Billy Bolt: “It has been three super-tough races here in Poland tonight, but I really enjoyed them. It’s easier to say that when you win all three of course, but they were three really good battles with the boys. I was happy with my riding in all three to be honest. It was a difficult track with the ground being so loose, so you couldn’t quite push to the maximum. I tried a few different lines in that last final to try and make up ground – some worked, some didn’t – and I did make a couple of mistakes. Three good races, awesome track, awesome crowd, what more could you ask for!”
Jonny Walker: “It was a bit of a rough night here in Poland. We got off to a great start with the SuperPole win, which was great, and made some good steps forward with the bike. But during the race I just didn’t feel comfortable, I was really struggling with arm pump. We made a few changes for the last race which felt better, but we have got more work to do. Overall, we’ve made good progress tonight and I’m looking forward to round five next week.”
