Three points split Speedway GP title fight after Vojens drama

Lambert takes Speedway GP lead as Vojens sets up three-point title decider

Robert Lambert has turned the Speedway GP title fight on its head after he was awarded the win after a rain-shortened Danish Grand Prix at Vojens to leave just three points separating himself from Bartosz Zmarzlik and Australia’s Brady Kurtz heading to the final round.

Max Fricke joined Lambert and Leon Madsen on the podium, while Kurtz’s afternoon Sprint victory helped keep the Australian firmly in contention despite finishing seventh in the main meeting.

After Zmarzlik reclaimed the championship lead in Riga, Lambert arrived in Denmark 10 points behind. He leaves with 142 points, one ahead of Zmarzlik and three clear of Kurtz, with all three now assured of a championship medal.

The Vojens weekend also crowned Mikkel Andersen as Under-21 World Champion, with Beau Bailey finishing fifth in the SGP2 standings. Elsewhere, Kurtz helped Wroclaw book a Polish league final against Lambert’s Torun, while Motorcycling Australia announced national championship status for seven Classic and Evo classes from 2027.

Lambert declared winner after 20 heats

Saturday’s Danish Grand Prix was classified on the results of the opening 20 heats after persistent rain prevented the meeting from being completed.

Lambert topped the heat standings with 13 points, ahead of Madsen on 12. Fricke and Michael Jepsen Jensen both scored 10, but the Australian’s three heat wins gave him third on countback ahead of the Dane, who had one victory.

Lambert and Madsen had earned direct passage to the final. Zmarzlik, fifth with nine heat points, and Kurtz, seventh with eight, still faced the Last Chance Qualifiers.

The opening LCQ was interrupted, with Fredrik Lindgren excluded, before worsening rain brought a lengthy stoppage. Track work and a wait for conditions to improve could not rescue the remaining races, and the FIM Jury abandoned the meeting in the interests of rider safety.

The classification therefore reverted to the completed heats. Lambert received 20 championship points, Madsen 18 and Fricke 16, with Zmarzlik collecting 12 and Kurtz 10.

It was Lambert’s second Vojens GP victory in three years and his fifth consecutive top-two finish this season. Second places at Wroclaw and Malilla, victory in Lodz, second in Riga and another win in Denmark have carried him into the Golden Race Jacket.

Lambert nevertheless maintained that his approach would remain unchanged for the decider.

“There is no pressure on me – like there hasn’t been all season.”

Kurtz wins the Sprint as three Australians score

Kurtz had earlier drawn level with Zmarzlik at the top of the championship by winning the Vojens Sprint.

The four points lifted him from 125 to 129, matching the reigning champion before the evening meeting. Lambert finished second for three points, having beaten Zmarzlik in Q2 to deny the Pole a place in the Sprint.

Fricke took third for two points and Jason Doyle fourth for one, giving Australia three of the four Sprint scorers.

Across the two scoring opportunities, Lambert collected 23 championship points, Fricke 18, Kurtz 14 and Doyle seven. Kurtz consequently reduced his deficit to Zmarzlik from four points to two, but Lambert’s larger haul moved the Briton ahead of both.

Vojens Speedway GP Sprint results

Fricke strengthens his bid for a 2027 place

Fricke’s second Grand Prix podium of 2026, combined with his Sprint points, moved him from eighth to sixth in the championship.

The Australian now has 89 points, level with seventh-placed Kacper Woryna and eighth-placed Patryk Dudek. Madsen is only one point ahead of that trio in fifth, while Jepsen Jensen holds fourth on 102.

With the top seven in the final standings securing automatic qualification, Fricke still has work to do at Torun. His Vojens result has nevertheless put him in a much stronger position for the final round.

Fricke supported the decision to stop racing in the conditions and praised the track crew for getting the meeting through its heats.

Doyle was classified 11th in the GP and leaves Denmark ninth in the series on 66 points. Jack Holder remained absent through injury, with Anders Thomsen taking his place and finishing 14th.

Woryna already has a 2027 berth through the SGP Challenge. Lambert’s guaranteed top-seven championship finish also releases his Challenge qualification place to fifth-placed finisher Andzejs Lebedevs, securing the Latvian’s return.

Vojens Speedway GP results

Final classification after 20 completed heats. Points are GP championship points; Sprint points are listed separately above.

Danish wild card Frederik Jakobsen finished 10th on his GP debut, having earned the opportunity with second place in the Danish Championship. He also remains in contention for a 2027 series place through the redistribution of SGP Challenge berths.

New Under-21 champion Mikkel Andersen was classified 15th. Nicolai Heiselberg joined him as a track reserve after replacing the injured Villads Nagel in the No.18 race jacket.

Official Vojens Speedway GP results

Speedway GP standings after Round Nine

Andersen crowned Under-21 World Champion at home

Friday’s SGP2 finale delivered a Danish championship one-two, with Mikkel Andersen taking the world title and Nicolai Heiselberg winning the Vojens round to secure silver.

Andersen finished the three-round series on 46 points, ahead of Heiselberg on 42 and Poland’s Wiktor Przyjemski on 38. The 18-year-old becomes Denmark’s first Under-21 World Champion since Michael Jepsen Jensen in 2012.

Andersen arrived at his home circuit with a 10-point advantage over Maksymilian Pawelczak, built on second place at Malilla and victory in Lodz. He had needed a top-six finish to guarantee the title regardless of his rivals’ results.

In the event, ninth at Vojens was enough. Pawelczak finished 13th, allowing Andersen’s eight championship points to complete the job despite a fall and exclusion in Heat 13.

It capped a season in which Andersen had recovered from a broken fibula sustained at SON2 in Prague in May.

“Going from an injury to winning a World Championship is mega in my eyes.”

The son of former Grand Prix winner Brian Andersen also becomes the first rider to win both the SGP3 youth world title and the Under-21 crown. His progression has been steady: SGP3 champion in 2022, fourth in SGP2 in 2024, bronze in 2025 and now gold.

Heiselberg wins Vojens as Przyjemski salvages bronze

Heiselberg won the finale ahead of Przyjemski, Adam Bubba Bednar and Danish wild card Bastian Pedersen.

The victory lifted Heiselberg from seventh to second in the championship, despite ongoing pain from the foot injury he suffered in the Lodz final.

Przyjemski’s bronze also came after an injury-interrupted campaign. The Pole won at Malilla, missed Lodz and finished second at Vojens, taking 38 of the possible 40 championship points from the two rounds he contested.

That left the 2024 champion eight points behind Andersen after missing an entire round.

Bailey fifth in the world as McDiarmid finishes strongly

Beau Bailey led Australia’s SGP2 challenge with sixth at Vojens, collecting 11 championship points to finish fifth overall on 34.

Bailey had arrived level with William Drejer and Slater Lightcap on 23 points. Drejer’s fifth place in Denmark put him one point ahead of Bailey in the final standings, while the Australian finished four points clear of Lightcap and four behind bronze medallist Przyjemski.

Mitchell McDiarmid recorded his best result of the three-round series with eighth at Vojens. The nine championship points doubled his season tally to 18 and placed him 13th overall, ahead of Rasmus Karlsson on the official classification despite their equal totals.

Vojens SGP2 results

Points below are championship points awarded for the round.

Official Vojens SGP2 results 

Final 2026 SGP2 championship standings

Kurtz and Lambert head for Polish league final showdown

The world title rivals will also face each other in the PGE Ekstraliga final after Wroclaw and defending champion Torun completed their semi-final victories on Sunday.

Kurtz won four of his five heats for Wroclaw, scoring 13 points plus one bonus in a 45-45 home draw with Leszno. Wroclaw advanced 100-80 on aggregate.

Kurtz and Dan Bewley delivered a 5-1 in the last heat to salvage the draw, with Bewley contributing 12 points plus one bonus. Australia’s Ben Cook and Keynan Rew each scored eight points plus two bonuses for Leszno.

Torun defeated Lublin 58-32 to progress 106-74 on aggregate. Patryk Dudek led the winners with 12 points plus two bonuses, while Mikkel Michelsen scored 11, Emil Sayfutdinov 10 and Lambert nine plus one bonus. Zmarzlik scored 13 for Lublin.

Torun also confirmed new deals through 2028 for Lambert, Dudek, Sayfutdinov, Michelsen and team manager Piotr Baron. Wroclaw announced that Maciej Janowski will remain for 2027.

In the relegation play-out, Gorzow won 47-43 away to Czestochowa, with Anders Thomsen contributing 14 points.

PGE Ekstraliga results – September 13

The first two meetings were semi-final second legs. Torun hosts Wroclaw in the opening leg of the final on September 20, with the return at Wroclaw on October 4.

Torun to decide the Speedway GP world title

The 2026 Speedway GP World Championship concludes at Torun’s Marian Rose Motoarena on September 26.

With another Sprint offering up to four championship points before the GP itself awards a maximum of 20, each rider still has 24 points available. The three-point gap covering Lambert, Zmarzlik and Kurtz could therefore change before the evening’s racing even begins.

Lambert will be racing at his Polish club’s home track. Zmarzlik is chasing a record seventh individual world title, while Kurtz is bidding to turn last year’s one-point championship defeat into his first crown.

For Fricke, the same meeting will decide whether his Vojens podium proves the springboard to a top-seven finish and automatic qualification for 2027.

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