Speedway Grand Prix are a series of stand-alone

motorcycle speedway Motorcycle speedway, usually referred to simply as speedway, is a motorcycle sport involving four and sometimes up to six riders competing over four anti-clockwise laps of an oval circuit. The motorcycles are specialist machines that use only ...

events over the course of a season used to determine the Speedway World Champion. The series started in 1995 replacing the previous format of a single event final. The first winner was Hans Nielsen of Denmark.

Event format

The format for a Grand Prix changed for the 2007 season onwards. Sixteen riders take part in each Grand Prix and over the course of twenty heats each rider will race against every other rider once. The top eight scorers advance to a semi-final and from each semi-final the 1st and 2nd placed riders will advance to the GP final. In this format all rides counted towards Grand Prix points totals, including the semi-final and final, the maximum points for a single GP is 21 (5x heat wins, semi final win and final win). This scoring revision was introduced as a result of comments made during 2006 that the 4 finalists received too many points compared to the losing semi-finalists who in turn received little benefit compared to, say, the 9th placed non-qualifie

Also, this format means that the winner of each Grand Prix may not have been the rider who scores most GP points from each round. The scoring system has been overhauled for the 2020 season which will see championship points scored based on the overall GP result of a rider rather than each individual heat of which those points will only decide the progress of a rider in a GP.

Qualification for Grand Prix

The same 15 riders form the basis of the Grand Prix line up throughout the course of the season, barring injuries. The 16th rider, known as the "wild card", will normally be a leading non-GP rider from the country in which the Grand Prix is being held. The Wild Card can win the Grand Prix like any other rider, and their World Championship points count the same as the 15 permanent riders, although this has only happened on five occasions by

Mark Loram Mark Roysten Gregory Loram (born 12 January 1971) is a former British motorcycle speedway rider who won the World Speedway Championship in 2000 and won the British Championship in 1997, 1999, and 2001. Career Born in Mtarfa, Malta, Mark Lo ...

, Martin Dugard, Hans Andersen at the 2006 Danish Grand Prix,

Michael Jepsen Jensen Michael Jepsen Jensen (born 18 February 1992) is a speedway rider from Denmark. Career He was part of the 2010 Under-21 World Cup winning Denmark team. He also won the 2012 Nordic Speedway Grand Prix becoming the 1st wildcard to have won a G ...

at the

2012 Speedway Grand Prix of Nordic The 2012 FIM Dansk Metal Nordic Speedway Grand Prix was the eleventh race of the 2012 Speedway Grand Prix season. It took place on 22 September at the Speedway Center in Vojens, Denmark. The Grand Prix was won by wild card Michael Jepsen Jensen ...

, and most recently

Bartosz Zmarzlik Bartosz Zmarzlik (; born 12 April 1995) is a Polish motorcycle speedway rider and three-time World Champion (2019, 2020 and 2022). He has been decorated with the Order of Polonia Restituta, V class. Biography Born in Szczecin, Poland, Zmarzlik i ...

at the 2014 Speedway Grand Prix of Poland. The 15 permanent Grand Prix riders have been decided by various methods over the history of the series. For the 2016 season, the top 8 riders from the 2015 World Championship automatically qualified. They were joined by 3 riders who qualified via the Grand Prix Qualifiers, and 4 riders who were nominated by then-series promoters,

IMG img or IMG is an abbreviation for image. img or IMG may also refer to: * IMG (company), global sports and media business headquartered in New York City but with its main offices in Cleveland, originally known as the "International Management Group ...

Event promotion

The Speedway Grand Prix series and the

Speedway World Cup The Speedway World Cup is an annual speedway event held each year in different countries. The first edition of the competition in the current format was held in 2001 and replaced the old World Team Cup which ran from 1960 until 2000. The last ed ...

were originally promoted by Benfield Sports International, which later was renamed to BSI Speedway. On 11 April 2007 it was announced that BSI Speedway had been acquired by

and the existing team took up roles within IMG Motorsport. IMG Motorsport managed the series until 2015. Speedway Grand Prix is currently promoted by Discovery Sports Events, formerly

Eurosport Eurosport is a group of pay television networks in Europe and parts of Asia. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery through its international sports unit, it operates two main channels— Eurosport 1 and Eurosport 2—across most of its territorie ...

Events since 2015.

Table of winners

References

{{International sports tours World motorcycle racing series

Individual An individual is that which exists as a distinct entity. Individuality (or self-hood) is the state or quality of being an individual; particularly (in the case of humans) of being a person unique from other people and possessing one's own need ...

Event format

Qualification for Grand Prix

Event promotion

Table of winners

See also

References