Grand Prix Challenge @ Glasgow

SWEDEN’S Kim Nilsson was the shock winner of the FIM Grand Prix Challenge on an incident-packed night at Glasgow.

Nilsson, who had UK spells with Newport, Lakeside, Eastbourne and Leicester during his British career, scored 13 points and defeated Great Britain hero Dan Bewley in a run-off for victory in the meeting.

Bewley still made certain of his place in the 2023 GP series, along with Jack Holder who beat his Australian counterpart Max Fricke in a run-off for the third and last guaranteed spot.

Nilsson said: “I wouldn’t have believed it, especially not winning the meeting. My goal was the top three, but I didn’t know what to expect. I hadn’t been to Glasgow before and I was just open-minded.

“I am going to be open-minded again next year too. I am going to do my best and try to build up a good team around me so that I can perform as well as I can.”

Bewley added: “It’s nice to have qualified – you never know with speedway what is going to happen. It’s nice to have what you could say is a back-up plan.

“Hopefully I don’t need it, but if I do, it is nice to have it. It was an awesome night, and it was good to be back in Glasgow again.”

A series of crashes saw 2012 World Champion Chris Holder suffer a broken collarbone, two broken ribs and a broken bone in his lower back after coming to grief in Heat 12, whilst Anders Thomsen broke his leg when he fell in Heat 14.

Earlier in the day, Oliver Berntzon had been ruled out of the meeting with a shoulder injury after an incident in practice, whilst Vaclav Milik was concussed when he crashed out of Heat 1.

GRAND PRIX CHALLENGE, Glasgow
Kim Nilsson 13 (after run-off), Dan Bewley 13, Jack Holder 12 (after run-off), Max Fricke 12, Robert Lambert 10, Rasmus Jensen 10, Michael Jepsen Jensen 9, Andzejs Lebedevs 7, Rohan Tungate 7, Anders Thomsen 5, Connor Bailey 5 (res), Drew Kemp 5, Chris Holder 4, Dominik Kubera 3, David Bellego 3, Szymon Wozniak 2, Vaclav Milik 0.
Top three qualify for the 2023 Speedway Grand Prix series.

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Photo credit: IAN ADAM