INTERNATIONAL SEASON PREVIEW

Images courtesy of Steve Hone Photography

The most high-profile event of the season sees the welcome return of the Speedway World Cup, which will feature a five-man squad travelling to Wroclaw, Poland as the competition takes place for the first time since 2017.

Nine countries will compete, with Poland as hosts seeded to the Final, whilst Great Britain, Australia, Sweden, Denmark, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany and France contest the semi-finals.

Those meetings take place on July 25 and July 26, with the winners of each meeting qualifying for the Final and the second and third-placed teams going to the Race-Off on July 28. The winning team there take the last place in the Final on July 29.

The Under-21 version of the competition retains the Speedway of Nations format, with the SON2 event taking place at Latvian venue Riga on Friday August 11 – the day before the Grand Prix at the same track.

The opening event of the year with GB involvement is the semi-final of the FIME European Team Championship, in which they finished third overall last season, with Dan Bewley and Robert Lambert both in double figures in the Final.

This time around they will compete in the semi-final at Czech Republic venue Pardubice on April 15, with the other meeting taking place at Gdansk. The Final is one week later in Germany on April 22, with the venue to be decided.

There was also bronze for GB last year in the Under-23 version of the event, where Bewley scored 13 points in the Final whilst Tom Brennan put in an impressive display in the semi.

That competition gets underway for GB in Germany at Stralsund on May 18, with places up for grabs in the Final at Macon in France on Saturday July 22.

The FIME European Pairs last year saw GB sail into the Final with semi-final victory at Macon, but in 2023 they will be keen to improve on an overall sixth-place finish.

They will head to Finland for the semi-final, racing at Varkaus on July 15, with the other semi in Hungary at Nagyhalasz. The Final is the last scheduled major event of the year, at Opole in Poland on Sunday October 1.

The junior version of the event takes place at Under-19 level, and GB will take their place at Pardubice on September 2.

Individually, the Grand Prix series again runs over ten rounds with Riga replacing Wroclaw in the only change of venue to 2022.

The medal chase for Lambert, Bewley and Tai Woffinden gets underway once again in Croatia with the Donji Kraljevec GP on April 29, with Torun once again hosting the finale on September 30.

SGP2 events will take place alongside the GPs at Prague, Gorzow and Vojens, with the qualification rounds on May 20 at Krsko, Vojens and Pardubice.

The Speedway Euro Championship again runs over four rounds, starting at Czestochowa on June 17 and then visiting Gustrow and Bydgoszcz before the decider in Pardubice on September 22.

The qualifiers start in late April with meetings at Terenzano, Daugavpils, Debrecen and Mureck, with the SEC Challenge at Nagyhalasz on May 14.