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1998 Speedway Grand Prix

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1998 Speedway Grand Prix
Season details
DatesMay 15 - September 18
Events6
Cities6
Countries6
Riders21 permanents
3 wild card(s)
Heats144 (in 6 events)
Winners
Champion SWE Tony Rickardsson
Runner-up SWE Jimmy Nilsen
3rd place POL Tomasz Gollob

The 1998 Speedway Grand Prix was the 53rd edition of the official World Championship.[1][2] It was the fourth season in the Speedway Grand Prix era used to determine the Speedway World Champion.[3]

Tony Rickardsson won the World title, which included three wins from the six Grand Prix events. The Swede's win was his second World title success and he secured the gold medal comfortably ahead of nearest rivals Jimmy Nilsen and Tomasz Gollob.[4]

Event format

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The system used was a new one for the 4th SGP season with 24 riders, divided into two classes. The eight best would be directly qualified for the "Main Event", while the sixteen others would be knocked out if they finished out of the top two in 4-man heats on two occasions - while they would go through if they finished inside the top two on two occasions. This resulted in 10 heats, where eight proceeded to the Main Event, where exactly the same system was applied to give eight riders to a semi-final.

The semi-finals were then two heats of four, where the top two qualified for a final and the last two going towards the consolation final. The 4 finalists scored 25, 20, 18 and 16 points, with 5th to 8th scoring 15, 14, 12 and 10 point, and after that 8, 8, 7, 7, etc. Places after 8th place were awarded according to the time a rider was knocked out and, secondly, according to position in the last heat he rode in.

Qualification for Grand Prix

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The 1998 season had 21 permanent riders and 3 wild card at each event. The permanent riders are highlighted in the results table below.

Calendar

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Round Date City and venue Winner Runner-up 3rd placed 4th placed Results
1 May 15 Czech Republic Prague , Czech Republic
Markéta Stadium
Sweden Tony Rickardsson United States Billy Hamill Sweden Jimmy Nilsen Poland Tomasz Gollob results
2 June 6 Germany Pocking , Germany
Rottalstadion
Sweden Tony Rickardsson Sweden Jimmy Nilsen United States Billy Hamill Poland Tomasz Gollob results
3 June 19 Denmark Vojens , Denmark
Speedway Center
Denmark Hans Nielsen United Kingdom Chris Louis Sweden Tony Rickardsson Australia Jason Crump results
4 August 7 United Kingdom Coventry , Great Britain
Brandon Stadium
Australia Jason Crump Sweden Jimmy Nilsen Poland Tomasz Gollob Australia Ryan Sullivan results
5 August 28 Sweden Linköping , Sweden
Motorstadium
Sweden Tony Rickardsson United Kingdom Chris Louis Sweden Peter Karlsson United States Greg Hancock results
6 September 18 Poland Bydgoszcz , Poland
Polonia Stadium
Poland Tomasz Gollob Australia Ryan Sullivan Sweden Jimmy Nilsen Denmark Hans Nielsen results

Final standings

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Qualifies for next season's Grand Prix series
Full-time Grand Prix rider
Wild card, track reserve or qualified reserve
Pos. Rider Points CZE
Czech Republic
GER
Germany
DEN
Denmark
GBR
United Kingdom
SWE
Sweden
POL
Poland
Gold Sweden (4) Tony Rickardsson 111 25 25 18 8 25 10
Silver Sweden (8) Jimmy Nilsen 99 18 20 8 20 15 18
Bronze Poland (3) Tomasz Gollob 97 16 16 8 18 14 25
4 Denmark (7) Hans Nielsen 76 8 12 25 7 8 16
5 United Kingdom (18) Chris Louis 75 15 8 20 6 20 6
6 United States (1) Greg Hancock 69 6 10 14 15 16 8
7 Australia (9) Ryan Sullivan 68 12 7 3 16 10 20
8 Australia (10) Jason Crump 62 (+3) 3 3 16 25 7 8
9 United States (2) Billy Hamill 62 (+N) 20 18 6 12 5 1
10 United Kingdom (5) Mark Loram 52 6 7 10 7 8 14
11 Australia (15) Leigh Adams 51 10 6 4 4 12 15
12 Czech Republic (22) (23) (24) Antonín Kasper, Jr. 50 7 4 15 14 3 7
13 Sweden (14) Stefan Dannö 49 14 6 7 10 5 7
14 United Kingdom (17) Andy Smith 43 2 14 5 4 6 12
15 Sweden (19) Henrik Gustafsson 43 8 15 6 6 2 6
16 Denmark (6) Brian Andersen 31 5 7 8 7 4
17 Sweden (23) (25) Peter Karlsson 27 1 8 18
18 Italy (11) Armando Castagna 23 1 5 3 3 6 5
19 Hungary (12) Zoltan Adorjan 21 7 5 2 3 1 3
20 Australia (16) Craig Boyce 18 3 4 1 1 4 5
21 Poland (13) Piotr Protasiewicz 16 2 1 5 2 3 3
22 Denmark (21) Jesper B. Jensen 14 4 1 5 2 2
23 Denmark (22) Brian Karger 12 12
24 Poland (20) Sebastian Ułamek 10 1 2 1 4 2
25 Germany (22) (24) Gerd Riss 6 4 2
26 Czech Republic (23) Bohumil Brhel 5 5
26 United Kingdom (23) Joe Screen 5 5
28 Norway (24) Lars Gunnestad 5 4 1
29 Poland (24) Jacek Gollob 4 4
30 Poland (27) Jacek Krzyżaniak 3 3
31 Germany (23) Robert Barth 2 2
32 United Kingdom (24) Martin Dugard 2 2
33 Poland (23) Robert Dados 1 1
Pos. Rider Points CZE
Czech Republic
GER
Germany
DEN
Denmark
GBR
United Kingdom
SWE
Sweden
POL
Poland

References

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  1. ^ "WORLD INDIVIDUAL FINAL - RIDER INDEX". British Speedway. Retrieved 10 July 2021.
  2. ^ "HISTORY SPEEDWAY and LONGTRACK". Speedway.org. Retrieved 10 July 2021.
  3. ^ "Speedway riders, history and results". wwosbackup. Retrieved 10 July 2021.
  4. ^ "Hoare, T. (1998) 'Hamill crashes out in Poland',". The Times. 21 September 1998. Retrieved 11 July 2021 – via Gale Primary Sources.
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