With the ultimate prize of four permanent places in the 2025 FIM Speedway Grand Prix (SGP) series on the line, riders from eight nations and two continents will converge on the Stadion Pardubice – Svítkov in the Czech Republic this coming Friday (4 October) for the FIM Speedway Grand Prix World Championship Challenge.
Following four hard-fought qualification rounds staged in late May in Hungary, Germany, Slovakia and Italy, the sixteen riders who made the cut along with two Czech wildcards are preparing to go into battle for what for some could be a career-changing place among the sport’s elite.
It is a highly prestigious event that has a proven track record of providing a route into the big time. Bartosz Zmarzlik won the FIM SGP Challenge in 2016 and has gone on to dominate the discipline with the powerful Polish rider sewing up his fifth SGP crown in six years last weekend while swift Slovakian Martin Vaculik – who finished as runner-up in last year’s FIM SGP Challenge in Gislaved, Sweden – ended the SGP series in fifth with Grand Prix wins in Prague and Wroclaw.
Earning their starting positions in Pardubice via the qualification round in Debrecen in Hungary were Poland’s Przemysław Pawlicki and Kacper Woryna along with Frederik Jakobsen from Denmark and Sweden’s two-time national champion Jacob Thorssell. Held the same day in Abensberg in Germany, the second qualification round saw Kai Huckenbeck enjoy home advantage to progress alongside Denmark’s Rasmus Jensen, Dominik Kubera from Poland, Australian Max Fricke and Britain’s Tom Brennan, a two-time winner of the FIM Speedway of Nations (SoN).
Just five days later the second set of qualification rounds in Žarnovica in Slovakia and Lonigo in Italy were staged with 2022 Gorzów SGP winner Anders Thomsen from Denmark, 2017 SGP silver medallist Patryk Dudek from Poland and Brady Kurtz from Australia earning their places behind the tapes in Pardubice where they will be joined by the Czech Republic’s Jan Kvech, Italian Michele Paco Castagna, former FIM Speedway Under 21 (SGP2) World Champion Jaimon Lidsey – who won the title in Pardubice – from Australia and Germany’s Kevin Wölbert.
These sixteen riders will be joined in the Czech Republic by home heroes Jan Macek and Daniel Klima.
Picking four riders from such a talented line-up who are most likely to earn their places among next year’s SGP elite is a tough task, but twenty-five-year-old Kubera has been in fine form in this season’s SGP series with fourth-placed finishes in Landshut, Prague and Cardiff placing him eighth, just eight points short of the top six and an automatic qualification place for 2025.
Fricke will also have his sights set on next year’s SGP series and the twenty-eight-year-old, a three-time national champion and member of Australia’s victorious 2022 SoN team, underlined his class when he finished second behind Zmarzlik at the Swedish SGP in Malilla in June.
Racing in the Stadion Pardubice – Svítkov is scheduled to get under way with the first Heat at 18:15 local time with the action streamed LIVE on FIM-MOTO-TV.
Start List
Entry_list_-_Pardubice_2024
Words by FIM – Feature Image courtesy of Jesper Veldhuizen
