2003 Speedway Grand Prix Qualification

The 2003 Speedway Grand Prix Qualification or GP Challenge was a series of motorcycle speedway meetings used to determine the 6 riders that would qualify for the 2003 Speedway Grand Prix^[1] to join the other 16 riders that finished in the leading positions from the 2002 Speedway Grand Prix.^[2]

2003 Speedway Grand Prix Qualification
← 2002 2004 →

Only 6 riders would qualify through the GP Challenge once again but there was a major change in the lead up to the GP Challenge with a new qualifying format of 4 quarter finals and 2 semi finals. The Intercontinental Final, Continental Final, Overseas Final and Scandinavian Finals were all scrapped.^[3]

Lee Richardson won the GP Challenge.^[4]

Format

• First Round (7 riders from Poland to quarter final, 6 from Sweden & Great Britain, 5 from Denmark & Czech Republic, 4 from Australia & Germany, 3 riders from United States, Hungary, Italy, Russia & Slovenia, 2 from Norway, Finland, Latvia, 1 rider each from Austria, Canada, Croatia, France, Netherlands and Ukraine)
• Quarter finals - 32 riders to semi finals
• Semi finals - 16 riders to GP Challenge
• Final Round - 6 riders from the GP Challenge to the 2003 Grand Prix

Quarter finals

32 riders to semi finals

QF (27 April 2002 Lonigo) Pos Rider Points 1 Peter Karlsson 14 2 Piotr Protasiewicz 13 3 Robert Dados 12 4 Ryan Fisher 12 5 Steve Johnston 11 6 David Howe 11 7 Lukáš Dryml 9 8 Róbert Nagy 7 9 Andrea Maida 6 10 Josef Franc 5 11 Simon Stead 4 12 Eduard Shaihullin 4 13 Christian Miotello (R) 4 14 Jörg Pingel 4 15 Simone Terenzani 2 16 Alessandro Milanese (R) 0 17 Stéphane Trésarrieu 0 17 Sandor Lakatos 0

QF (12 May 2002 Pfaffenhofen) Pos Rider Points 1 Hans Andersen 12 2 Bjarne Pedersen 12 3 Roman Povazhny 11 4 Sergej Darkin 9 5 Dean Barker 8 6 Bohumil Brhel 8 7 Rafał Okoniewski 8 8 Paul Hurry 8 9 Joachim Kugelmann 8 10 Zlato Krznaric 8 11 Matthias Kröger 7 12 Tomáš Topinka 7 13 Björn G Hansen 5 14 Mirko Wolter 5 15 Manuel Hauzinger 2 16 Herbert Rudolph (R) 1 17 Jim Groen 0

QF (18 May 2002 Ljubljana) Pos Rider Points 1 Charlie Gjedde 14 2 Tomasz Bajerski 12 3 Attila Stefáni 10 4 Matej Žagar 10 5 Craig Watson 10 6 Aleš Dryml Jr. 10 7 Peter I Karlsson 9 8 Brent Werner 8 9 Jarosław Hampel 7 10 Anders Henriksson 6 11 Izak Šantej 5 12 Mark Lemon 5 13 Niels Kristian Iversen 5 14 Norbert Magosi 3 15 Chris Slabon 3 16 Joonas Kylmäkorpi 2

QF (24 May 2002 Vetlanda) Pos Rider Points 1 Lee Richardson 11 2 Stefan Dannö 10 3 Jason Lyons 9 4 Kai Laukkanen 9 5 Andrzej Huszcza 9 6 Henrik Gustafsson 7 7 Ronni Pedersen 7 8 Lars Gunnestad 7 9 Billy Janniro 6 10 Danny Bird 6 11 Jernej Kolenko 5 12 Jacek Rempala 3 13 Niklas Karlsson (R) 3 14 Nikolai Kokin 3 15 Andrzej Korolew 1 16 Alexander Liatosinskij 0 17 Stefan Andersson 0 18 Freddie Eriksson (R) 0

Semi finals

16 riders from to GP Challenge

SF 15 June 2002 Mšeno Pos. Rider Points 1 Bohumil Brhel 14 2 Lukáš Dryml 12 3 Lee Richardson 11 4 Peter Karlsson 11 5 Ronni Pedersen 9 6 Tomasz Bajerski 9 7 Rafał Okoniewski 8 8 David Howe 8 9 Robert Dados 7 10 Kai Laukkanen 6 11 Andrea Maida (R) 6 12 Paul Hurry 4 13 Brent Werner (R) 4 14 Róbert Nagy 3 15 Attila Stefáni 3 16 Matej Žagar 2 17 Stefan Dannö 2 18 Antonín Šváb Jr. 1	SF 16 June 2002 Holsted Pos. Rider Points 1 Jason Lyons 12 2 Bjarne Pedersen 12 3 Piotr Protasiewicz 12 4 Andrzej Huszcza 10 5 Dean Barker 8 6 Hans Andersen 7 7 Roman Povazhny 7 8 Steve Johnston 7 9 Peter Ingvar Karlsson 7 10 Lars Gunnestad 6 11 Craig Watson 6 12 Sergej Darkin 6 13 Ryan Fisher 6 14 Aleš Dryml Jr. 5 15 Charlie Gjedde 5 16 Henrik Gustafsson 4

Final Round

GP Challenge

6 riders to 2003 Grand Prix

• 25 August 2002 Piła

Pos.	Rider	Total	Points
1	Lee Richardson	14	3, 2, 3, 3, 3
2	Bohumil Brhel	12	3, 3, 3, 0, 3
3	Piotr Protasiewicz	11	0, 3, 3, 2, 3
4	Lukáš Dryml	11	3, 2, 2, 3, 1
5	Bjarne Pedersen	11	3, 1, 3, 2, 2
6	Tomasz Bajerski	11	2, 1, 2, 3, 3
7	Jason Lyons	10	2, 2, 1, 3, 2
8	Hans Andersen	9	2, 3, 0, 2, 2
9	Ronni Pedersen	9	0, 3, 2, ex, 0
10	Peter Karlsson	5	2, 1, 2, ex, 1
11	David Howe	4	0, 2, 1, 0, 0, 3
12	Robert Dados (R)	4	-, -, 1, 2, 1
13	Roman Povazhny	4	1, ef, 1, 1, 1
14	Andrzej Huszcza	3	ex, 0, 1, 2, 0
15	Steve Johnston	2	1, 0, 0, 1, ef
16	Rafał Okoniewski	2	1, 1, 0, -, -
17	Dean Barker	1	1, 0, 0, 0, -

race off for 3rd place - Protasiewicz, Dryml, B Pedersen, Bajerski