Crump wins Danish speedway GP

Jason Crump extended his lead in the 2009 world speedway title to 14pts with a majestic victory at the Danish Grand Prix in Copenhagen on June 13.

Crump clinched his second win in four rounds this season, and in doing so equalled the great Tony Rickardsson on 20 GP victories.

He also doubled his prizemoney with the Danish meeting the second of this year's three Super Prix rounds.

“I am really proud to equal Tony’s record, but Tony has a few more championships than me,” said Crump. “Overall, it was a good meeting and full credit to the organisers for preparing a great track tonight.

“It’s all about consistency and focusing on one grand prix at a time. We are not even at the halfway mark yet, so there is still a long way to go. I just need to get to every final; win a few more GPs and keep racking up the points and the championship will sort itself out.

"Right now, I’m pretty happy with my position and wouldn’t change it with anybody.”

Victory for Crump meant he fully capitalised on two of his main rivals, Emil Sayfutdinov and defending champion Nicki Pedersen, failing to finish their respective semi-finals.

The Russian teenager, who had outscored Crump 14pts to 13 in the qualifying, didn't even start his, with a momentary lapse in concentration seeing him drop the clutch too soon and being excluded for touching the tapes.

Pedersen, who had three stitches in his nether region after an early crash with Sayfutdinov, was in the same semi-final as Crump and was challenging the Aussie entering the back straight for the first time when he had a puncture and pulled up.

It left Crump, who had started the meeting with a 6pt lead over Sayfutdinov, lined up against Greg Hancock, Tomasz Gollob and wildcard Niels-Kristian Iversen in the final, and he authoritatively swept to the front off the outside gate to claim the 6pts, and 22 in total for the evening.

Gollob was in second place but drifted wide and Hancock, who was struggling to make the semi-finals when he had only 6pts from four rides, stole in for runner-up on the rostrum. Gollob was third and Iversen fourth.

Mildura's Leigh Adams, who admitted before the meeting that this was make-or-break for his title aspirations, missed out on the semi-finals after scoring just 6pts in the heats and, Fredrik Lindgren, who led the GP standings after the opening round in Prague, continued his rollercoaster campaign with just 3pts.

Adams is ninth on 28pts, behind Crump (74), Sayfutdinov (60), Andreas Jonsson (46), Hancock (45), Pedersen (44), Gollob (44), Lindgren (33) and Kenneth Bjerre.

For full results and standings, click here.

The next round is the showpiece world speedway event - the British GP at Cardiff on June 27.