WEEKEND PREVIEW - SGP Cardiff

Image courtesy of Taylor Lanning Photography

Bewley secured a sensational victory at the Principality Stadium in 2022, to launch an incredible record which means he has won all three of the Finals in which he has taken part.

He starts the meeting sixth in the SGP standings on 78 points, which is the final automatic qualifying spot for next season – but his sights should be set on an overall rostrum finish, as he is only seven points adrift of third placed Martin Vaculik.

Of the other Great Britain riders, Robert Lambert is currently eighth in the standings on 71 points, trailing Bewley by seven.

But Lambert needs to turn around a difficult Cardiff record in previous years, as he has never reached the semi-finals in his home Grand Prix from four attempts so far.

Meanwhile, one of the more remarkable statistics of the Grand Prix series is that Tai Woffinden has never won his home event, despite 11 GP wins during his career.
Woffinden has been runner-up on three occasions – 2014, 2016 and 2018, and has reached the Final four times. He goes into the event ninth in the standings after finishing fourth in the last round in Riga when he was excluded from the Final for movement at the start.

At the top of the standings, Bartosz Zmarzlik takes a 22-point lead into the meeting, and with three rounds remaining he is closing in on a fourth World title.

Fredrik Lindgren is his closest challenger after a consistent campaign so far, and he holds a comfortable 15-point advantage over Vaculik, whilst Australian duo Jason Doyle and Jack Holder are still in overall rostrum contention despite Holder missing the last round due to injury.

Cardiff has been the home of the British Grand Prix since 2001, staging 20 meetings so far having only missed out in the pandemic years of 2020-21.

And it could be a milestone event for Zmarzlik, who needs one more win to equal the achievement of fellow triple World Champion Jason Crump, who holds the series record of 23 SGP wins.

One of those previous 22 wins for Zmarzlik came at Cardiff in 2018, where Crump and Greg Hancock both won three times, whilst Chris Holder and Tony Rickardsson both won twice.
Other previous Cardiff winners in this year’s line-up include Bewley (2022), Leon Madsen (2019) and Maciej Janowski (2017).
Elsewhere this weekend, Chris Harris continues his bid to be crowned FIM World Long Track Champion as he takes a three-point lead over Martin Smolinski, his only real rival, into the penultimate round at Morizes in France on Saturday.

And young British racers Sam Hagon, Joe Thompson and Ashton Boughen are in Pardubice to compete in the FIM European Under-19 Pairs Final.

Meanwhile in the Swedish Bauhaus-Ligan quarter-finals this week, Lejonen confirmed their progression into the last four with a 52-38 win over Indianerna, having won the away leg by four points.

Rospiggarna are also into the semi-finals after holding Piraterna to a 46-44 home win, taking the Hallastavik side through by eight points on aggregate.