BRADY WINS OPENER AS DOYLE TAKES TITLE

BRADY KURTZ had the opportunty of some early action during the QBE Insurance Australian SGP in Melbourne and gained a victory in the first completed heat of the night. .

Kurtz came in to replace wild card Sam Masters who couldnt restrain his nerves and broke the tapes and the Poole hero impressed with an excellent ride to lead home three other Pirate assets in Maciej Janowski, Chris Holder and Antonio Lindback.

Brady was given a second outing after Piotr Pawlicki withdrew from the meeting after a heat 8 fall but this time around the nerves hit Kurtz and he touched the tapes, thus handing the ride to fellow reserve Rohan Tungate who made a scintillating ride to go from last to first to claim his second heat win of the night, having previously deputised for the Pole in heat 13 following a tapes offence.

But the meeting belonged to Jason Doyle who quickly picked up the points he required to confirm his status as Australia's sixth world speedway champion and then went on to take the round ahead of GBs Tai Woffinden, who confirmed himself as the bronze medalist, with Bartosz Zmarzlik making his fourth rostrum finish of the campaign in third. Series runners-up Patryk Dudek was the fourth finalist and all the full quartet are confirmed entrants for the 2018 series where they will be joined by the other automatic qualifiers of Maciej Janowski, Emil Sajfutdinov, Matej Zagar and Freddie Lindgren.

They will meet GP Challenge qualifiers Przemyslaw Pawlicki, Artem Laguta and Craig Cook. The final four places in the 2018 competition will be taken by four wild-card picks made by the SGP Commission.

FINAL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS: 1 Jason Doyle 161, 2 Patryk Dudek 143, 3 Tai Woffinden 131, 4 Maciej Janowski 122, 5 Bartosz Zmarzlik 121, 6 Emil Sayfutdinov 117, 7 Matej Zagar 107, 8 Fredrik Lindgren 107, 9 Martin Vaculik 99, 10 Chris Holder 85, 11 Piotr Pawlicki 81, 12 Antonio Lindback 77, 13 Peter Kildemand 60, 14 Greg Hancock 45, 15 Niels-Kristian Iversen 44, 16 Vaclav Milik 31, 17 Martin Smolinski 25, 18 Max Fricke 11, 19 Pawel Przedpelski 10, 20 Nicki Pedersen 8, 21 Michael Jepsen Jensen 8, 22 Maksims Bogdanovs 8, 23 Kenneth Bjerre 7, 24 Krzysztof Kasprzak 6, 25 Rohan Tungate 6, 26 Kai Huckenbeck 4, 27 Jacob Thorssell 4, 28 Justin Sedgmen 4, 29 Przemyslaw Pawlicki 3, 30 Dave Watt 3, 31 Brady Kurtz 3, 32 Craig Cook 2, 33 Linus Sundstrom 2, 34 Sam Masters 2, 35 Kim Nilsson 2, 36 Josh Bates 2, 37 Nick Skorja 1.

QBE INSURANCE AUSTRALIAN SGP SCORES: 1 Jason Doyle 19, 2 Tai Woffinden 16, 3 Bartosz Zmarzlik 13, 4 Patryk Dudek 15, 5 Matej Zagar 10, 6 Martin Vaculik 9, 7 Maciej Janowski 9, 8 Emil Sayfutdinov 8, 9 Rohan Tungate 6, 10 Martin Smolinski 6, 11 Peter Kildemand 6, 12 Antonio Lindback 4, 13 Justin Sedgmen 4, 14 Brady Kurtz 3, 15 Chris Holder 3, 16 Dave Watt 3, 17 Sam Masters 2, 18 Piotr Pawlicki 2.