Saturday saw the penultimate Speedway Grand Prix and Gollob used it to become World Champion. He started the night in Terenzano, Italy on 141 points, with Crump on 122 and Hampel on 121. Gollob needed to lead by 25 points by the end of the meeting to guarantee his first Championship title.
Hampel was first out in heat 2 but could only manage second, taking his score up to 23. Crump had a miserable start in heat 3 finishing fourth in what was a interesting meeting for the Aussie. After his perfect ride in the last meeting, Gollob could manage third in heat 4 to take him to 142. Heat 6 saw the first drama of the night as Holta and Andersen collided, causing Andersen to be excluded and Hampel could only manage third in the restart, taking him to 124. Crump overtook Hampel in heat 7 as he won the heat to take him to 125. However Gollob followed up with a win of his own in heat 8 taking him to 145.
The three then clashed in heat 9 with Crump lucky not to be excluded after a jump start. However Crump's bike packed up in the restart so finished fourth anyway. Golllob beat Hampel to first meaning he stretched his lead to 22 on the night. Heat 10 saw Chris Holder suffer a nasty crash as he lost control of his bike and was swept into the air fence before landing on his fallen bike. Luckily he was okay to continue later on in the meeting.
Crump was involved in the drama again as a crash from Hancock in heat 14 caused him to lose his bike himself. However Hancock was excluded and Crump could only manage second in the restart, taking his points total to 127. Gollob extended his lead with another heat win in the following heat putting Crump all but out of the running. Hampel also lost ground in the 16th heat finishing third and levelling points with Crump. Gollob then won his final heat in the 18th and Hampel kept as much pressure on as he could by winning the 19th heat. Crump's fate was sealed when he finished second in the final heat and out of the semi-finals.
So it was down to two and Gollob stormed into the final with a win in his semi-final against Nicky Pedersen (who scored 11 points overall) in second, Rune Holta (who scored 9 points overall) in third and Andreas Jonsson (who scored 8 points overall. The second semi-final was won by Greg Hancock (who scored 14 points overall). However second was between Chris Harris and Hampel, it was so close it had to go to a video replay, which in itself looked inconclusive. The referee gave the place to Harris which meant Gollob was crowned World Champion there and then. Hans Andersen finished fourth in the second semi-final (scoring 8 points overall).
With Gollob crowned World Champion he deservedly went on to win the final in Terenzano to celebrate in style. Brit Chris Harris finished second, with Greg Hancock in third and Nicky Pedersen fourth. All eyes will now be on who can make the final eight to be guaranteed a place in next season's Grand Prix Championship as Speedway enters its final event of the season.
No comments:
Post a Comment