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Last Updated: Jan 5th, 2010 - 12:50:06 |
Russian wonderkid Emil Sayfutdinov swept to his third GP win of the season with a perfect seven wins out of seven display at the FIM Slovenian Grand Prix in Krsko.
The 19-year-old's victory trimmed Jason Crump's overall lead at the head of the World Championship title race from 36 points to 26, but he needed a huge slice of good fortune to finish on top of the rostrum after a dominant display at the Matije Gubca Stadium.
Sayfutdinov, making his first visit to Krsko, won all his five qualifying rides and the first semi-final in impressive style, but chose gate two in the final and appeared to have handed the initiative to Rune Holta, who flew away from the inside to establish a commanding lead.
Behind him, Sayfutdinov, Nicki Pedersen and Tomasz Gollob were jousting for second place when Pedersen lifted on a tightly-packed fourth turn to clash with Gollob and send the Pole crashing to the deck in a nasty-looking fall.
Pedersen was excluded, and in the re-run Sayfutdinov grasped a fortuitous second bite of the cherry to trap ahead of Holta and race away to a memorable triumph and a maximum 24-point haul.
Crump, despite running a last place in Heat 9, had reached the semi-finals on 11 points, but then lost out to Holta and Pedersen, the latter battling past the Aussie in a three-way scrap that also included the gutsy Scott Nicholls, who had produced his best GP performance of the year.
The unlucky Holta, who scored 12 qualifying points and finished runner-up for the second GP running, is now just three points off the top eight who qualify automatically for the 2010 series, with Pedersen retaining eighth place after an eventful night.
The World Champion started with a last in Heat 2, juggled places in Heat 14 before finishing third and then won a decent duel with Lindgren to grab second in Heat 17, a result that booked him a semi-final spot.
At the top of the leaderboard Crump now has 146 points with two rounds remaining - at Terenzano in Italy and Bydgoszcz in Poland - with Sayfutdinov back into second place on 120, and Gollob down into third on 110.
The inside starting position supplied 11 of the first 12 winners, with only Sayfutdinov breaking the sequence of gate one victories when he got the better of Lindgren off the outside in Heat 4, pulling past the Swede down the back straight.
Some ruts on the inside line of bends three and four began to cause problems midway through the meeting, with Chris Harris coming to grief in Heat 10 and Greg Hancock parting company with his machine in spectacular fashion in Heat 19.
Hancock's bike brushed the side of Kenneth Bjerre's helmet as it reared out of control, and Sayfutdinov showed great awareness in avoiding the stricken American.
In the re-run Bjerre led Sayfutdinov for three and a half laps, but the boy wonder produced one of the best passes of the night in diving under the Dane off the last turn to maintain his unbeaten record.
In Heat 20 Nicholls failed to add to his seven points, but the Brit squeezed into the semi-finals on countback. He was one of three riders tied on the same total with the same scoring record (Bjerre, despite opening his night with two zeroes, and wild-card Matej Zagar were the others) but Nicholls got the nod because of his higher GP ranking.
Leigh Adams also made the last eight on nine points, a clever cut-back in Heat 16 giving him one of his two wins, but he trailed in at the back in the first semi-final and was eliminated alongside Hancock, who was third behind Sayfutdinov and Gollob.
2009 FIM Slovenian Grand Prix scores:
Emil Sayfutdinov (Russia) 24, Rune Holta (Poland) 19, Tomasz Gollob (Poland) 12, Nicki Pedersen (Denmark) 10, Jason Crump (Australia) 12, Leigh Adams (Australia) 9, Greg Hancock (USA) 9, Scott Nicholls (Great Britain) 7, Kenneth Bjerre (Denmark) 7, Matej Zagar (Slovenia) 7, Grzegorz Walasek (Poland) 6, Fredrik Lindgren (Sweden) 6, Hans Andersen (Denmark) 5, Andreas Jonsson (Sweden) 5, Chris Harris (Great Britain) 4, Sebastian Ulamek (Poland) 2.
2009 World Championship standings:
Crump 146, Sayfutdinov 120, Gollob 110, Hancock 106, Jonsson 92, Bjerre 85, Lindgren 82, Pedersen 80, Holta 77, Andersen 70, Adams 63, Ulamek 56, Walasek 50, Harris 48, Nicholls 35, *Antonio Lindback (Sweden) 27, Iversen 20, *Jaroslaw Hampel (Poland) 9, *Grigory Laguta (Russia) 6, *Edward Kennett (Great Britain) 4, *Matej Kus (Czech Republic) 1.
*denotes wild-cards. Iversen has appeared as both a wild-card and reserve
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