BELLE Vue stage a massive weekend of World Championship racing with the FIM ATPI Grand Prix of Manchester taking place on Friday and Saturday.
The World’s top stars descend on the National Speedway Stadium and with a maximum of 44 points available, there could well be wholesale changes to the title battle.
The headline clash is between six-time World Champion Bartosz Zmarzlik and ATPI Aces skipper Brady Kurtz, who ran the Polish superstar so close to glory last year.
Ultimately a victory for Zmarzlik over Kurtz in the second meeting of the weekend proved crucial in the final standings, despite Kurtz going on to win each of the remaining five rounds.
This season Zmarzlik has 32 points from the opening two rounds with Kurtz on 26, and they are separated by another Pole, Kacper Woryna, who has 31 after an impressive start to his GP career.
Whilst the absence of Aces favourite Dan Bewley due to injury is undoubtedly a major disappointment – especially after his brilliant Friday victory last year – home fans do have reason to cheer the two Great Britain representatives along with Kurtz.
Former World No.2 Robert Lambert spent a brief but memorable period with the Aces in 2022, helping them to a dramatic Premiership title success over Sheffield.
Lambert started the 2026 campaign with a Final appearance in Landshut and heads into the weekend sixth in the standings.
He said: “I’m going there to do well and get as many points as I can from this weekend.
“Having the fans’ support is massive. I’m looking forward to that and, obviously, I have experience around Manchester.
“As I said at the beginning of the season, the goal is to try and get a medal again in the GP and that stays the same.
“If you have a couple of good rounds and some consistent ones, you’re going to be up there. We need to keep our finger on the pulse and not let the top pack move further away because that makes it much harder.
“We are fully focused on the coming rounds and hopefully we can pull something out of the bag.”
Meanwhile Brennan, who rode for the Aces in 2021-23, has the wild card place in his home country for the second time after appearing at Cardiff in 2024.
He scored four points in that meeting, but was frustrated not to take a race victory in Heat 8 having led all the way only to be pipped by Danish racer Mikkel Michelsen.
Brennan said: “I go to Manchester with realistic expectations. I want to win a race so I don’t have to think about losing to Michelsen in Cardiff anymore!
“But I obviously want to win as much as I can and show the world that I can compete at that level.”
Qualifying and the Sprint Race takes place on Friday from 2pm, and is open to Friday ticket holders with pre-booked Sprint tickets.
A limited number of East Stand tickets are available for the GP on Friday evening (7pm) along with a very small number of East Stand tickets for Saturday (7pm).
All ticket bookings should be made at https://sgpmanchester.com , and that site also has all arrangements for parking, park & ride and the Fanzone.
LINE-UP: Bartosz Zmarzlik, Brady Kurtz, Jack Holder, Andzejs Lebedevs, Robert Lambert, Kacper Woryna, Leon Madsen, Michael Jepsen Jensen, Patryk Dudek, Max Fricke, Jason Doyle, Nazar Parnitskyi, Anders Thomsen, Jan Kvech, Kai Huckenbeck, Tom Brennan. Reserves: Anders Rowe, Dan Thompson.