Jarek Hampel crowned King of Krsko in Doodson Slovenian FIM Speedway GP

Polish hotshot Jaroslaw Hampel knew he needed to break his Krsko curse to maintain his World Championship medal challenge after winning the Doodson Slovenian FIM Speedway Grand Prix on Saturday.

The Lodz-born rider collected his third SGP win of 2013 after heading World Championship leader Tai Woffinden, Tomasz Gollob and Niels-Kristian Iversen in the final.

Woffinden is odds on for World Championship gold after moving on to 134 points and extending his lead to 20 over the injured Emil Sayfutdinov, who sat out the Krsko round due to arm and knee problems.

The Russian is on 114 points, but Hampel’s haul of 16 in Slovenia moved him on to 112 and he is now firmly in the hunt to add to the World Championship silver he bagged in the 2010 series.

Hampel, who has also won the Buckley Systems New Zealand SGP in Auckland and the Gorzow SGP this year, had never scored more than six points in Krsko before this event.

So he was delighted to leave with a gold medal, which could make a monumental difference in his search for second overall.

The Zielona Gora and Vetlanda rider said: “I didn’t feel so good on the track in the middle of the meeting after getting a third and a last in my second and third races. When I sat in the pits I thought, ‘it’s going to happen again here.’ But I’ve got a good team and the boys told me I needed to be more focused and that I could do it. They told me I could race well and that helped me a lot.

“The last few rounds haven’t been bad, but I’ve always missed something in the semi-finals. My situation with the points isn’t as good as it could have been.

“But after the middle of this competition, I knew if I wanted to stay in this position and have a chance to get a medal, I needed to do something. After my two bad races, I was much harder on the track and that was good.”

Hampel refuses to give too much thought to his position in the World Championship standings. He is simply determined to get his head down and score well at the Rockklassiker Scandinavian SGP in Stockholm’s stunning Friends Arena on September 21 and the season-ending Torun SGP on October 5.

He said: “For the moment, I am not thinking about which place I will finish this year. Before every single Grand Prix, I think about doing a good job and we will see what happens.

“We don’t know anything about the track in Stockholm, so that’s going to be very interesting. Torun is a very good racing track, and I hope we can have a good end to the season.”

Hampel may have profited from Sayfutdinov’s layoff, but he hopes he will return in the Swedish capital.

Having sat out four rounds of the 2012 SGP series due to a broken ankle, the Pole knows the pain of watching the World Championship race from the sidelines.

Hampel said: “I’ll try to keep going – that’s what I do. But it will be good if Emil gets back on track in Stockholm. I know how it is when you’re out because you are injured. I wish him all the best and I hope we have a good meeting in Stockholm.”

Woffinden took a giant stride towards becoming Britain’s first world champion since Mark Loram in 2000 with his whopping 17-point haul.

If he leaves Stockholm with a 22-point advantage over his nearest rival, he will be crowned world champ with a round to spare. And Woffinden is ready to make one last push to lift speedway’s biggest prize.

He said: “It was a great meeting for me and I’m one step closer to becoming world champion. I’ll just go to Sweden and do what I have been doing. Believe me when I say I’m going to put in the biggest effort with my training now. There’s less than a month to go and I will be putting it all in.”

Third-placed Gollob edged closer towards retaining his World Championship status for 2014 after accruing 16 points to leapfrog absent world champion Chris Holder for eighth place – the last automatic qualifying position.

The Torun racer was over the moon to end what has been a nightmare run of bike troubles and get back on the rostrum.

He said: “For the last few GPs, I’ve had problems with my bikes. I was testing new engines yesterday and today. In one heat, there was a problem with the bike, so I changed and then I was fast.

“I’m very happy to be in eighth place at the moment. I hope the next two GPs will go better, especially Torun. Congratulations to Jarek and Tai. It was a good meeting.”

Next up is the penultimate round of the SGP season - the Rockklassiker Scandinavian SGP in Stockholm's Friends Arena at 7pm local time on September 21.

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS: 1 Tai Woffinden 134, 2 Emil Sayfutdinov 114, 3 Jaroslaw Hampel 112, 4 Nicki Pedersen 108, 5 Niels-Kristian Iversen 101, 6 Greg Hancock 98, 7 Matej Zagar 92, 8 Tomasz Gollob 89, 9 Chris Holder 82, 10 Darcy Ward 78, 11 Fredrik Lindgren 73, 12 Krzysztof Kasprzak 70, 13 Martin Vaculik 56, 14 Andreas Jonsson 49, 15 Antonio Lindback 42, 16 Leon Madsen 14, 17 Ales Dryml 13, 18 Andzejs Lebedevs 9, 19 Chris Harris 7, 20 Krzysztof Buczkowski 6, 21 Linus Sundstrom 6, 22 Bartosz Zmarzlik 6, 23 Michael Jepsen Jensen 6, 24 Aleksandr Conda 3, 25 Josef Franc 2, 26 Peter Kildemand 2, 27 Kenni Larsen 2, 28 Nicolas Covatti 2, 29 Jason Bunyan 1, 30 Craig Cook 1, 31 Josh Auty 1.

DOODSON SLOVENIAN SGP SCORES: 1 Jaroslaw Hampel 16, 2 Tai Woffinden 17, 3 Tomasz Gollob 16, 4 Niels-Kristian Iversen 11, 5 Nicki Pedersen 14, 6 Darcy Ward 10, 7 Greg Hancock 9, 8 Matej Zagar 8, 9 Krzysztof Kasprzak 8, 10 Fredrik Lindgren 8, 11 Antonio Lindback 7, 12 Martin Vaculik 5, 13 Aleksandr Conda 3, 14 Andreas Jonsson 3, 15 Ales Dryml 2, 16 Leon Madsen 1, 17 Matic Voldrih DNR, 18 Denis Stojs DNR.


Related Motorsport Articles

84,520 articles