Thursday 2nd August 2012, 15:41

World No.2 Andreas Jonsson admits the slickening conditions nearly caught him out in Gorican before he hit back to claim FIM Fogo Croatian SGP silver on Saturday.

The Stockholm-born man started his meeting like a freight train, picking up three straight race wins. But he trailed home in the back in his final two heats and some feared his challenge was about to fade.

Fortunately, AJ had already done enough to reach the semi-finals and he followed Tomasz Gollob home to reach the last four, before passing Jurica Pavlic and holding off Gollob for second spot in the final.

Jonsson remains eighth in the World Championship on 62 points, but he is a comfortable 16 clear of the injured Jaroslaw Hampel who occupies ninth place.

Having had an indifferent campaign following his silver medal success in 2011, the Swedish international was relieved to get back on track after a mid-meeting blip.

He told his official website: “The track conditions changed. It became much slicker and we hadn’t done anything with my bikes because it had been going so well earlier on that we didn’t feel there was a need to change anything.

“As it turned out, that was our mistake. Since the new silencers were introduced, speedway bikes have become much more fragile and harder to adjust.

“This is why you often watch meetings now when a given rider wins easily in his first race and then loses.”

Jonsson was delighted with his best SGP performance of 2012. He added: “I’m really happy with this result!

“Since the beginning of this season it has been going really well in the leagues but not so well in SGP, maybe except the European SGP in Leszno where I also qualified for the final.

“We did a good job finding the right set-ups for the semi-final so it didn’t have to be my last race. We came home with 15 valuable points.”

Tweet

Speedway Grand Prix Speedway Grand Prix