GP line-up for 2026

[teijahn]

On 9/26/2025 at 4:27 AM, Gavan said:

God there is some crazy talk on here 

Why do people want new blood if the new blood isn’t good enough? 
Choose Fricke Doyle and Michelsen add them to the 12 and then tell me who will be the bottom 3 or 4

Add in the SGP 2 winner and a couple of young poles and you know they will not be competitive 

Those saying Doyle doesn’t deserve one should also be saying Fricke and Lambert are lucky to be in…. Doyle missed one and a half GP’s and rode injured for the 2 at Manchester … he only finished 16 behind Lambert and 13 behind Fricke …. And some say he doesn’t deserve it lol 

Well put, and accurate.  Look to the Polish Ekstraleague Averages (Far and Away the toughest International League) for confirmation.  The new faces/new blood concept is ridiculous if not franked by consistent form in the top League/s against the World's top riders.  As good as some of these young kids are it's a huge step from U21 & U24 competitions to the World top 16 or 20.  The only new blood that has shown enough to suggest competitiveness at GP level is Drabik, & not quite new blood but Piotr Pavliski.

[Phannan]

17 hours ago, teijahn said:

Well put, and accurate.  Look to the Polish Ekstraleague Averages (Far and Away the toughest International League) for confirmation.  The new faces/new blood concept is ridiculous if not franked by consistent form in the top League/s against the World's top riders.  As good as some of these young kids are it's a huge step from U21 & U24 competitions to the World top 16 or 20.  The only new blood that has shown enough to suggest competitiveness at GP level is Drabik, & not quite new blood but Piotr Pavliski.

Another drab gp year ahead then. Same riders year on year . No challengers to Bartek other than Brady and Dan . The winner of SGP 2 should definitely be promoted to SGP1 the following year. Obviously a good rider to win that can definitely improve at the top level. Every sport has promotion as a prize . Speedway is different obviously. That’s why it’s struggling badly and the gp has become a procession. 

[Phannan]

17 hours ago, teijahn said:

Well put, and accurate.  Look to the Polish Ekstraleague Averages (Far and Away the toughest International League) for confirmation.  The new faces/new blood concept is ridiculous if not franked by consistent form in the top League/s against the World's top riders.  As good as some of these young kids are it's a huge step from U21 & U24 competitions to the World top 16 or 20.  The only new blood that has shown enough to suggest competitiveness at GP level is Drabik, & not quite new blood but Piotr Pavliski.

Another drab gp year ahead then. Same riders year on year . No challengers to Bartek other than Brady and Dan . The winner of SGP 2 should definitely be promoted to SGP1 the following year. Obviously a good rider to win that can definitely improve at the top level. Every sport has promotion as a prize . Speedway is different obviously. That’s why it’s struggling badly and the gp has become a procession. 

[IainB]

2 hours ago, Phannan said:

Another drab gp year ahead then. Same riders year on year . No challengers to Bartek other than Brady and Dan . The winner of SGP 2 should definitely be promoted to SGP1 the following year. Obviously a good rider to win that can definitely improve at the top level. Every sport has promotion as a prize . Speedway is different obviously. That’s why it’s struggling badly and the gp has become a procession. 

The winner of the SGP2 should definitely be nowhere near the main SGP series, it's generally years before they're anywhere near the level required to be in the main series if ever at all. The last WU21 Champion currently in the series is Max Fricke who won it in 2016, it's taken him 10 years to get from that level to his current level and he's still relying on wild cards to qualify.

[OveFundinFan]

2 hours ago, Phannan said:

Another drab gp year ahead then. Same riders year on year . No challengers to Bartek other than Brady and Dan . The winner of SGP 2 should definitely be promoted to SGP1 the following year. Obviously a good rider to win that can definitely improve at the top level. Every sport has promotion as a prize . Speedway is different obviously. That’s why it’s struggling badly and the gp has become a procession. 

Generally speaking, the winner of SGP2 is way behind a regular GP1 rider. After winning GP2 series and GP after GP getting beat by top riders could demoralise the young lad and set him back.

When Martin Vaculick came to GP1 he did well initially....but then didn't bother with GP1 fora few years to give himself time to mature as a rider. He came back into GP1, with more experience, came 2nd in GP1 just couple years ago. Sadly this year not performed too well, maybe he carrying an injury or something.

Just after Fricke winning SGP2 came Drabik and Smektala, between them they won 3 GP2 on the trot. Neither of them yet in the GP1 series full time, Jaimon Lidsey the same. I think Jan Kvech was 2nd in GP2 just 3 or 4 years ago, he will come back in 2 or 3 years better then he is now, hes picked up the experience.... it was just too soon for him.

[aarongaleuk]

On 9/26/2025 at 9:50 PM, LagutaRacingFan said:

I'm told Artem Laguta is in.

You can't be serious, you said exactly the same this time last year.

[Wee Eck]

2 hours ago, aarongaleuk said:

You can't be serious, you said exactly the same this time last year.

Don’t worry, it’s only the voices in his head that give him these tips

[SPEEDY69]

6 hours ago, OveFundinFan said:

Generally speaking, the winner of SGP2 is way behind a regular GP1 rider. After winning GP2 series and GP after GP getting beat by top riders could demoralise the young lad and set him back.

When Martin Vaculick came to GP1 he did well initially....but then didn't bother with GP1 fora few years to give himself time to mature as a rider. He came back into GP1, with more experience, came 2nd in GP1 just couple years ago. Sadly this year not performed too well, maybe he carrying an injury or something.

Just after Fricke winning SGP2 came Drabik and Smektala, between them they won 3 GP2 on the trot. Neither of them yet in the GP1 series full time, Jaimon Lidsey the same. I think Jan Kvech was 2nd in GP2 just 3 or 4 years ago, he will come back in 2 or 3 years better then he is now, hes picked up the experience.... it was just too soon for him.

Didn't Crump get a wildcard for being u21 champ or did I dream that? Vaculik, hmm I think rather than didn't bother he failed to get through the GP Challenge and has had about 6 wildcards now, so is he still trying to make the grade😉 

Edited 23 hours ago by SPEEDY69

[Phannan]

8 hours ago, OveFundinFan said:

Generally speaking, the winner of SGP2 is way behind a regular GP1 rider. After winning GP2 series and GP after GP getting beat by top riders could demoralise the young lad and set him back.

When Martin Vaculick came to GP1 he did well initially....but then didn't bother with GP1 fora few years to give himself time to mature as a rider. He came back into GP1, with more experience, came 2nd in GP1 just couple years ago. Sadly this year not performed too well, maybe he carrying an injury or something.

Just after Fricke winning SGP2 came Drabik and Smektala, between them they won 3 GP2 on the trot. Neither of them yet in the GP1 series full time, Jaimon Lidsey the same. I think Jan Kvech was 2nd in GP2 just 3 or 4 years ago, he will come back in 2 or 3 years better then he is now, hes picked up the experience.... it was just too soon for him.

In football ,the top 3 teams in the championship get promoted. The same 3 teams usually get relegated the following year. But the same rules apply every year. They get their chance. The 3 teams freshen up the top league at least. New faces . And if any are good enough then they stay up. It’s evolution to a point. As for the young riders not being good enough, how will we know until they get their chance. We know they won’t come out on top straight away but it will be interesting to watch their progress. The 3 wildcards aren’t good enough too. Otherwise they wouldn’t need a pick year on year. The gp has gone stale. Wheeling out the usual suspects who’ll never challenge the top spot will just worsen it. 

[PersonalResponsibility]

16 hours ago, Phannan said:

In football ,the top 3 teams in the championship get promoted. The same 3 teams usually get relegated the following year. But the same rules apply every year. They get their chance. The 3 teams freshen up the top league at least. New faces . And if any are good enough then they stay up. It’s evolution to a point. As for the young riders not being good enough, how will we know until they get their chance. We know they won’t come out on top straight away but it will be interesting to watch their progress. The 3 wildcards aren’t good enough too. Otherwise they wouldn’t need a pick year on year. The gp has gone stale. Wheeling out the usual suspects who’ll never challenge the top spot will just worsen it. 

You can say, with c.90% certainty, whether a young rider is good enough for the GPs. It's not like football where a player can bang them in against the U21s or lower league teams and you're never sure if they'll do it at the top level, we see these young riders every week in Poland/Sweden/Denmark/GB vs the same riders as they'd face in the GP.

The only rider in the top 20 of the Ekstraliga averages who you could argue is young and could/should be given a chance is Przyjemski, but even then he's racing as a junior, so his average doesn't tell the full story. Cierniak...maybe? He's sat between Woryna and Janowski in the averages, so it's difficult to see him being any better than Vaculik/Doyle/etc.

I'd love to see new faces in the GPs too, but the long and short of it is, there isn't anyone good enough. Even if you had the very best 15 riders in the world (Emil, Artem back, etc), someone is still going to be last.

The one thing I do think it lacks is some genuine jeopardy beyond mid-season. If you can't win the title, and are a few too many points off the top 7, what is your motivation? You'll either be handed a wildcard or you'll just drop out anyway. Same as having the GP Challenge before the end of the GPs - Kubera scored 6 race points in 2 GPs after winning the GP Challenge, why does he need to risk anything?

[SPEEDY69]

I don't get the obsession with Ekstraliga averages - Kolodziej and Ben Cook for example have been near the top in those lists but neither have made it into the GPs on a regular basis. Kurtz wasn't even riding in that league when he qualified via the GP challenge in 2024 was he?  No-one knows how a rider may perform, if it was all about averages and assessments why have a competition at all?  It'd just be nice to see some new battles, not just the same old troupe.

[racers and royals]

Polish media reports indicate that they expect the 3 wildcards will be Fricke, Michelsen and Becker. We will wait and see !