Speedway – Rob Painter: “Early Season form Key for GB Selection”

2020 marks a big year for British Speedway as the Monster Energy Speedway of Nations final will be held in Manchester on 8-9 May.

Being the host nation, Great Britain have already booked their place in the final with a further six teams to join them via the semi-finals in Landshut, Germany and Daugavpils, Latvia.

GB Speedway’s managing director Rob Painter was on hand last month at Autosport International to discuss the buzz that being hosts has created. He said:

“It’s a very exciting opportunity, Great Britain have a good record racing at home, last year we won the semi-final at Manchester and hopefully we can put on a good show again this year in the final.

“I’d like to see us on the top step in May of course but it’s a very, very tough competition there’s going to be seven teams in the final who will all believe they are capable of winning it, with a little bit of luck anyone can win it.

“I am confident to say Great Britain will put on a good show.”

There is something of a selection headache for team manager’s Oliver Allen and Simon Stead because of the rule that requires an under 21 rider from each country to race at least once during every event.

In previous years Robert Lambert has been a shoo-in for that slot with his outstanding performances across Europe seeing him named first reserve for the individual Speedway GP series in 2019.

Now though, Lambert is ineligible to ride as an under 21 which means a new talent will need to step up.

“Dan Bewley is the standout under 21 for Great Britain this year and at this moment is an obvious choice with Manchester being his home track so I would expect it to be Dan but there’s a lot of really keen youngsters chasing him hard and if one of them really blows us away we might choose them.

With Lambert now requiring a senior role in the team, the competition for places is hotter than ever.

Three-time World Champion Tai Woffinden missed 2019’s final through injury and is expected back in the team this year, but the second senior place is likely to be contested between Craig Cook (who raced last year), Charles Wright (the reigning British Champion) and Lambert with others such as Chris Harris, Adam Ellis and Steve Worrall having an outside chance of selection. Painter said:

“It’ll be really interesting to see I know Ollie (Allen) and Simon (Stead) the team managers are looking really closely at the training camp that’s coming up. The form in the early season will be key. 

“Tai is understandably going to captain Great Britain but the other senior role is really up for grabs.”

The British Speedway season kicks off next month.