Ekstraliga Round Five Review - SEC Round Three Preview

Image courtesy of Darren Bott

There was no surprise that Lambert’s Rybnik team fell to a 34-56 home defeat against the reigning champions, who made it five wins out of five this season in emphatic fashion.

But Great Britain racer Lambert once again underlined his 2020 form with a stunning 15-point haul from six rides, which included wins over the visitors’ star duo of Emil Sayfutdinov and Piotr Pawlicki. Lambert is undoubtedly the sensation of Polish League racing this season, having almost doubled his average from 2019 to storm into the top ten of the overall rankings – and only Grudziadz’s Aretm Laguta has scored more points.

Said Lambert: “We knew it was going to be tough, coming up against the winners from last year. But we’ve done a lot of laps around here so we were pretty confident with the bikes. I’m very happy with the way things are going this season. My bikes are all fast, I feel good, and when those things are going together you have a great performance. I’m really pleased with the way the season has started, and we take it meeting by meeting and continue the form.”

Lambert’s attention switches back to the Speedway Euro Championship this week, as he heads into round three at Gniezno on Wednesday sitting joint-second in the standings. Leon Madsen leads the series after winning both Finals so far, but Lambert and Nicki Pedersen are just two points behind. Gnieszno is the venue where Lambert made his SEC debut in 2018, when he scored six points after touching the tapes in his first ride.

There was also a solid night’s Ekstraliga work for Lambert’s GB colleague Tai Woffinden, who collected 10+3 from five rides as Wroclaw saw off Grudziadz 53-37 at the Olympic Stadium. The meeting was delayed by an hour after heavy thunderstorms – but following remedial work to the circuit, the track record was lowered an incredible six times, with Maciej Janowski proving fastest of all.

Woffinden dropped his only points to the flying Laguta, and shared in a Heat 6 5-1 with Gleb Chugunov over Krzysztof Buczkowski and an off-colour Pedersen, which enabled the home side to pull clear after a close start. However, Wroclaw remain outside the play-off places after Lublin pulled off the result of the season so far with a shock 47-43 win at previously unbeaten Czestochowa on Sunday.

Former Lions duo Grigory Laguta and Matej Zagar returned to haunt their old club, with Laguta especially impressive on 13 points – and it was the Russian who took care of the last-heat decider with a vital victory over Leon Madsen and Pawel Przedpelski.

Meanwhile, Rybnik remain clear of the bottom of the table as Gorzow suffered a fourth successive defeat, going down 50-40 in a local derby at Zielona Gora who are now up to second.