FIM SPEEDWAY: DANISH RACER ANDERSEN COMPLETES COMEBACK TO SEAL SGP2 SUCCESS IN LODZ
Danish shooting star Mikkel Andersen feared he had blown his chance of Sportlab Cosmetics FIM SGP2 of Poland – Lodz success as he topped the podium to reach the FIM Speedway Under-21 World Championship summit.
Andersen was the last man standing in a dramatic final, raced in front of 6,630 fans at the Moto Arena Lodz on Friday, triumphing ahead of home hero Maksymilian Pawelczak.
Despite powering to a 15-point maximum in his heats, the Pole crashed out of the second run of the final going into turn four, forcing him to settle for second place and handing victory to Andersen.
This came after Aussie star Beau Bailey fell on turn one in the first run of the final, bringing down Danish talent Nicolai Heiselberg, who was unfit to compete in the rerun. He was placed third, with Bailey fourth.
Victory for Andersen, coupled with his second spot at the SGP2 opener in Malilla on July 10, leaves him on 38 points – 10 ahead of nearest rival Pawelczak, who has 28 going into the series finale – the Deluxe Homeart FIM SGP2 of Denmark – Vojens on September 11.
If Andersen scores 11 championship points or more on his Danish home track, he is guaranteed to become Denmark’s first FIM Speedway Under-21 world champion since Michael Jepsen Jensen lifted the title in 2012. But he feared he had blown it in Lodz.
He said: “This was definitely a hard-working win. In the end, you just have to collect the points for the championship. I didn’t expect to be in the final after the first two heats, and I still can’t believe it in some ways.
“I took the wrong bike in the first race and finished third, and I tried it again in the second one. That was a miss, and I was third again. I had to take the spare bike and that worked straight away.
“We worked really hard in the pits. After the first two heats, we were not satisfied, but we got together and made it through in the end.”
Andersen knows finishing the job in Vojens will be no easy task, but he can’t wait to take on the world’s top junior stars in familiar surroundings.
He said: “I am just looking forward to going back to Vojens to my home crowd and doing a good job. That’s the main thing.
“We have 16 riders that are fast, so anything can happen. Vojens is a new day, so we will take it step by step. If it works in the end, I would be over the moon. We will keep fighting.”
Second-placed Pawelczak was gutted he couldn’t complete a six-ride maximum after dominating throughout the heats in Lodz. He said: “After the first heat, I was thinking, ‘Okay, I am quite fast and quite comfortable on the bike.’ After the second and then the third heat, I thought there was some chance that I could go to the final.
“Later on, I felt very fast on the track. Unfortunately, the final didn’t go as I planned. Mikkel basically did the same thing to me twice – he made a straight cutback underneath me. There was nothing I could do, but it was fair racing.
“I still made quite a good start in the first run of the final. I also made a good start in the second one. But Mikkel was faster than me, so congrats to him and all the other finalists.”
Whether or not Pawelczak, 16, wins gold, he still has an incredible opportunity to win an SGP2 medal in his first full season on a 500cc bike as he stands second overall on 28 points. He said: “That would be pretty special – I’m not going to lie. I am not really expecting anything from myself. I just want to have fun on the bike and on the track, have some good racing and put on a good show in Vojens.”
Fourth-placed Bailey is also in the running for the SGP2 rostrum after scoring 14 points in Lodz to move on to 23 overall. The race for the medals is incredibly open, with Denmark’s Villads Nagel third on 24, Bailey tied on 23 with Danish rival William Drejer and American surprise package Slater Lightcap, while Heiselberg is just behind on 22 in seventh place.
“Anything can happen in Vojens,” Bailey said. “I’ll just keep doing what I have been doing lately and hopefully get on to the podium there. I knew I didn’t make the start in the final in Lodz. It was a bit stressful because the start is very important. I hadn’t been making great starts throughout the night. It had really been pulling me down a bit. In the final, I went to cut back under Maks, but I didn’t have any power so I couldn’t turn the bike.”
A huge weekend of racing in Lodz concludes with the sold-out FIM Speedway GP of Poland – Lodz on Saturday evening – the biggest speedway event in the city’s history.
