This year more than ever rumours about who is riding for what company have been rife, but with the opening round of the World Cup just weeks away things are starting to look a bit clearer. The big news is that Mondraker Factory Team is now the MS Mondraker Team. With Fabien Barel’s retirement from racing at the end of the last season, the only remaining rider from last season is Frenchman Damien Spagnola.

Joining him his female rider Emmeline Ragot, and former MS Evil riders Brook MacDonald and Markus Pekoll. After winning the third round of the NZ DH mtb cup series at the weekend on his old Evil Bike, Brook has since tweeted a photo of his new frame. At the moment there is currently no news if there will be a Evil race team this year. Looking at the list of names and their achievements, the MS Mondraker Team looks to be a a strong contender coming into the race season. Here’s the official release from the team:

This new structure is the result of an agreement between Mondraker and the Austrian Race Team MS Racing owned by RedBull athlete Markus Stöckl and will mean for Mondraker a new stage and step ahead in DH Racing after former DH team ¨Mondraker Factory Team¨ and Fabien Barel announced their retirement.

The team will be composed by the following top riders:

Brook MacDonald
3 podium positions at World Cup UCI in 2011

Damien Spagnolo
Silver Medal World Championship 2011 Champery/SUI

Emmeline Ragot
World Champion 2011 Champery/SUI

Markus Pekoll
European Champion IXS Cup 2011

The goal of the team is to be one of the top DH teams of 2012 and to continue the great job of the Mondraker Factory Team of the last seasons.

All riders of the MS MONDRAKER TEAM will be riding the Summum Pro team which has proven to be a very promising and medal winning bike ever since its launch in 2009, with various victories from Fabien Barel in the last few years and Damien Spagnolo’s great performance in Champery September 011.

The MS MONDRAKER TEAM will have an impressive infrastructure and a very professional support team available for the riders, as well a professional photographer and movie maker who will be following the team during all the important races starting from the first World Cup race in Pietermartizburg between the 17th and 18th of March.

MS-Racing Owner Markus Stöckl says:

We are very proud to represent the new Mondraker Factory Team, already at my first visit at the Mondraker office we found a good base for our program. The Team is very sad that we had to let some of our riders go but also happy about the new riders Damien and Emmeline and about Brook and Markus to still be with us, each of them is a great Rider and has a cool personality, so we are looking forward to some successful and fun race weekends. It is quite a busy time for us because of the change of our main partner there will be some more changes down the road, but we are stoked about the new opportunities which are coming.

Tue 24th Jan, 2012 @ 10:00 am

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