Tony Rickardsson Q&A: Can anyone challenge Bartosz Zmarzlik in 2023 Speedway Grand Prix? How will Brits fare?

Speedway legend Tony Rickardsson reckons Bartosz Zmarzlik is the man to beat this year, and has also assessed the prospects of British trio Dan Woffinden, Robert Lambert and Dan Bewley.

Ahead of the upcoming Speedway GP second round in Warsaw – for which Zmarzlik will be on home soil – we sat down with Rickardsson to hear his thoughts on the opening race, the prospect of a British champion, and what it’s like competing in front of nearly 60,000 fans, as the riders will do this weekend in the Polish capital…

What did you make of the opening round in Croatia?

Tony Rickardsson: Obviously it was a little bit unfortunate with the weather, it’s never good when you have that much rain on the race track. But still, hats off to everybody who got the meeting done. Obviously you are wishing for a little bit more close racing but I know how difficult it is for the riders to race close to each other when you have track conditions like that.

Who are the strongest contenders for the title based on what you’ve seen so far?

TR: I had a little bit higher hopes for Dan Bewley. He did OK, he still got 10 points. Maybe I could see him topping up his game slightly. I think he’s a man for the big occasion, he can do a little bit extra during a big occasion. Then you have a group of five, six, seven riders who are just below Zmarzlik in the points, who can challenge him on the day but over a full season on different surfaces and race tracks, Zmarzlik is quite a bit stronger than the rest of the field right now.

You mentioned Bewley, but how do you rate the chances of the three British riders in general, Dan Woffinden, Robert Lambert and Bewley?

TR: I thought the track condition would have favoured all three of them, especially Bewley, who comes from a motocross background, his kind of riding style would’ve suited this track. But it’s so hard if you don’t get out of the start or you don’t have the right frame of mind or bike set-up. It’s going to be tough to challenge Zmarzlik, you really need to be on the top of your game to give him a good run for his money.

Do you see anyone beating Zmarzlik this season, and how many titles can he win?

TR: Right now nobody is sticking out that can beat him. I think the championships are missing [Artem] Laguta and Emil [Sayfutdinov], they were world No. 1 and No. 3, so that doesn’t help in making the competition closer, but that’s how it is and right now it’s up to the rest of the field to step up their game.

If you had to pick a dark horse to win the world title this season who would it be, and also who’s the best young rider in the field?

TR: The first race was not a good meeting to see who’s going to be strong over the whole year. We need to have another GP to really see if somebody is going to stand out. You always have great hope on [Maciej] Janowski on a track surface like that, same with Leon Madsen and Patryk Dudek. They are so, so talented on their day, they can be so fast on their day, but when they don’t have their day, the dips are way too low. Instead of finishing 12th to 14th, if they could up their game to finish sixth to eighth on a bad day, they could be great challengers. That’s really the name of the game, when you have an off day you’ve got to finish eighth at worst, and the rest [of the races] you’ve got to be higher up there to challenge for the world title.

Right now, it’s so close between so many, and I think we’re going to see a lot of different winners this year again, but I think at the end of the year we’re going to see Zmarzlik on top of the rostrum.

The stadium this week holds nearly 60,000 fans – how does competing in front of such a crowd impact the racing?

TR: I can only speak for myself, I enjoyed that more – you get such a buzz out on the race track when you hear all the fans. Of course you feel a little bit more nervous, little bit more pressure, it’s a little bit more of everything. For myself, I was driven by that, so it was just an awesome feeling to go out there and race in front of that many people. But of course you’ve got to keep yourself together and still try to perform.

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