"I really had to push hard but I managed to do that, and it worked for me," Ivan said. "The weather was changing all the time and in the morning the rain was incredible. It was very hard and muddy in the special tests and there was often only one line."

Tom Sagar, the young Briton who came up from the junior ranks last season to join the KTM Factory Team was a very creditable fifth in what was a tough weekend's racing where the riders covered a complex 60 km circuit three times.

With his victory on Sunday, Cervantes fulfilled the wishes of team boss Fabio Farioli who said after Saturday that he expected the Spanish rider to "push hard" on Sunday. Riders now go to Spain for the two rounds in what will be familiar territory for Cervantes. "It's a good atmosphere and there will be a lot of fans at the races," he said.

In a tough day of racing, KTM Enduro factory rider Juha Salminen improved on Saturday's second place when he topped the podium in Vale de Cambra in Portugal on Sunday in Round Four of the E2 World Championships.

Salminen, the runaway winner in the E1 class last season has been on the E2 podium in all four events so far this season. He scored a first and a third in Sweden in the snow in February and his good results in Portugal lay the foundation for his second successful season after returning from USA at the end of 2006.

"Today was hard racing and very tricky especially for the first guys out on the course. It was wet and there was a lot of mud."

Salminen said he is looking forward to the next two rounds in Spain, territory that is very familiar to him because he trains a lot there in the winter months. Salminen's factory rider teammate Alessandro Belometti of Italy finished fourth, a repeat of his finish on Saturday. He adds this new 36 world championship points to the 28 he already has collected to stay well up with the elite group in the class going into the Spain races.

Aro second in Round Four of E3 World Championships Samuli Aro continued his run of success in the E3 big bike category in the Enduro World Championship series on Sunday with a second place to follow on from his victory in Portugal the previous day.

Aro and KTM Enduro Factory Team teammate Marko Tarkkala, both from Finland, have had a stranglehold on the four races so far held this season in what is a hotly contested racing category.

Although all was not pain sailing for Tarkkala in the second race in Vale de Cambra, Portugal, south of the city of Porto, he still managed to finish fifth for valuable world championship points.

KTM supported rider Marcus Kehr of Germany had a good day on his KTM and finished third on the podium. Riders had a very tough day in the mud and what was often torrential rain but team boss Fabio Farioli still drew a positive line under the factory team's results for the weekend.

The 60 km course, which riders had to circle three times, offered very big challenges and levels of difficulty even for these extreme and highly skilled professionals. The Enduro competition now departs for the second two races on the Iberian Peninsular in Spain.

The area is familiar to the KTM riders, many of whom train there during the off-season.

Results

E1 1. Juha Salminen, Finland, KTM 2. Jonny Aubert, France, Yamaha 3. Valtteri Salonen, Finland Husaberg 4. Alessandro Belometti, Italy, KTM 5. Nicolas Paganon, France, Aprilia

E2 1. Ivan Cervantes, Spain, KTM 2. Simone Albergoni, Italy, Yamaha 3. Mika Ahola, Finland, Hondo 4. Eero Remes, Finland, KTM 5. Tom Sagar, Britain, KTM

E 3 1. Christophe Nambotin, France, Gas-Gas 2. Samuli Aro, Finland, KTM 3. Markus Kehr, Germany, KTM 4. Stefan Merriman, New Zealand, Aprilia 5. Marko Tarkkala, Finland, KTM

Image Jonty Edmunds