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Speedway Grand Prix
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| FIM Speedway Grand Prix | |
|---|---|
| Sport | motorcycle speedway |
| Founded | 1995 |
| Motto | No brakes, no gear, no fear |
| No. of teams | 15 riders + 1 wild card |
| Country | Worldwide |
| Current champions |  Jason Crump |
| Official website | website |
| Current Season Summary: |
| Articles related to Speedway Grand Prix: |
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Lists: |
Speedway Grand Prix are a series of stand-alone speedway events over the course of a season used to determine the Speedway World Champion.
Contents |
The format for a Speedway Grand Prix has changed for the 2007 season. 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.
All rides now count towards Grand Prix points totals, including the semi-final and final, which counts double (6-4-2-0) and therefore the maximum points for a single GP is 24 (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-qualifier [1]. Also, this format means that the winner of each Grand Prix may not be the rider who scores most GP points from each race.
The same 15 riders form the basis of the Grand Prix line up throughout the course of the season, barring injuries. A 16th rider, known as the "wild card", who will normally be a leading 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 three occasions by Mark Loram, Martin Dugard and most recently Hans Andersen at the 2006 Danish Grand Prix.
The 15 permanent Grand Prix riders have been decided by various methods over the history of the series. For the 2007 season, 3 riders qualified via the Grand Prix qualifying system of regional qualifiers and international finals. They were joined by the top 8 riders in the 2006 World Championship who had not already qualified and 4 riders who were nominated by series promoters, Benfield Sports International.
| Speedway Grand Prix seasons |  |
|---|---|
| 1995 • 1996 • 1997 • 1998 • 1999 • 2000 • 2001 • 2002 • 2003 • 2004 • 2005 • 2006 • 2007 |