Hancock Conquers Cardiff

The Speedway GP series headed to Cardiff's Millennium Stadium for the fifth round of eleven. After this round there will be a break as the Speedway World Cup takes place. But there was drama before the round started as Artem Laguta failed to get his visa in time, meaning that Magnus 'Zorro' Zetterstom made a one off welcome return the roster. The closeness of the competition was shown again as only three of the sixteen riders failed to win a heat.

The first heat saw Zetterstrom and the British wildcard Scott Nicholls enter the fray, Zorro finished second and Nicholls fourth with Crump starting with a win. This was followed up by current leader Gollob winning with his closest rival Hancock finishing second. Nicky Pedersen continued his form this season with an opening heat win in heat three. The fourth heat saw Chris Holder out-numbered by three Swedes as Lindback took the flag from Jonsson and Lindgren with the Aussie down in fourth.

Janusz Kolodziej took heat five and his compatriot Bjerre took heat six. Heat seven saw Zetterstrom win on his return and Gollob could only manage fourth. This opened the door for Hancock and the American took full advantage by winning heat eight with Crump finishing fourth.

Nicky Pedersen became the first of only five riders to win two heats in the ninth. The first bit of drama came in heat ten when Hampel's bike packed up, then Rune Holta's bike had too much acceleration and flew up into the air, knocking Holta to the floor. The restart saw Chris Harris battle Lindgren for the win and British crowd got to see the Brit take the chequered flag. Heat eleven was won by Holder as Hancock could only manage third but this was matched by Gollob in heat twelve. Crump was looking to be victorious in the twelfth heat but Emil Sayfutdinov took Crump on the last corner to steal the win.

Holder won his second heat in the thirteenth with Gollob continuing his miserable time in third and the wildcard Nicholls finished second. Hancock again took full advantage by winning his second heat and Sayfutdinov also made it back to back heat wins in the fifteenth. Kenneth Bjerre also won his second heat in the sixteenth with Crump finishing second.

The final set of heats saw their fair share of drama; Freddy Lindgren took out Sayfutdinov in the seventeenth and was rightly excluded. Hancock took the restart to win his third heat of the night. Andreas Jonsson won heat eighteen with Gollob second and Hampel took heat nineteen. The final heat saw Pedersen make a false start but was allowed to restart, but the Dane then did it again but went through the tapes and was subsequently excluded. This allowed reserve driver Tai Woffinden take part and the young Brit, who took part in last year's GP series, finished second after leading for two laps. Holder won it with Crump in third.

The first semi-final saw Sayfutdinov beat Hancock with Jonsson finishing third and Crump fourth. The second semi-final saw Bjerre unfortunately start too early and drove straight through the tapes, prompting his exclusion. Holder took the semi-final with Pedersen second and the returning Zetterstrom unfortunately came third. The final saw Pedersen knock into Holder who then knocked into Sayfutdinov and the Russian came down. Sayfutdinov was harshly excluded from the restart which saw the veteran Hancock win ahead of Pedersen and Holder.

Surprisingly, Gollob failed to make the semi-finals and only scored seven points compared to Hancock's twenty. Pedersen scored sixteen with Holder fifteen and Sayfutdinov thirteen. Bjerre took eleven points with Jonsson ten. Zetterstom accumulated nine points on his one-off return to this year's GP series and Cump finished with eight.

This means that after five rounds, Hancock is now back in the lead on eighty points, Gollob has fallen a little to sixty-eight. Holder is now fifty-seven with Hampel and Pedersen both only four points behind. Crump is on a round fifty with Sayfutdinov now only two behind and Lindgren is on forty. The only three not to win a heat in this round were Lindgren, Holta and the wildcard Nicholls.