Kurtz loses Speedway GP lead as Holder and Doyle crash out in Wroclaw

2026 FIM Speedway GP of Poland

Two weeks after Manchester delivered one of the great Australian Speedway GP weekends, Wroclaw provided a far harsher reminder of how quickly the sport can swing.

Max Fricke, Brady Kurtz and Jack Holder had locked out the Round Three podium in Manchester before Kurtz backed that up 24 hours later by winning Round Four and taking over the championship lead. Australia had the winner of the previous two Speedway GP finals, three riders on the Manchester podium, and Kurtz heading to Poland as the man on top of the world standings.

By the end of a storm-delayed night at Wroclaw’s Olympic Stadium, the picture looked very different.

Bartosz Zmarzlik

Bartosz Zmarzlik won the 2026 DeWalt FIM Speedway GP of Poland – Wroclaw final ahead of Robert Lambert and Michael Jepsen Jensen, with Kurtz fourth. It was Zmarzlik’s first Speedway GP victory since June 2025, his record-extending 30th SGP win, and it returned the Polish star to the top of the World Championship standings.

For Kurtz, fourth place still brought 14 championship points and kept him very much in the title fight, but the championship lead changed hands. Zmarzlik now leads on 82 points, with Kurtz three behind on 79.

Wroclaw delivers a night of delays and drama

The Wroclaw round already carried extra weight before a wheel had turned. Olympic Stadium hosted the first Speedway GP event in 1995, and this meeting marked the 300th SGP event in the championship’s history.

Severe rain and thunderstorms then made for a long, complicated night. The meeting was delayed for around two and a half hours after the track and pits were hit by heavy weather, with local fire crews called in to help pump water from the pits before the circuit staff could get the surface back into racing condition.

Team Fricke evacuating the race bike amongst flooding

The final was not completed until shortly before midnight, but when the meeting did get going, it produced a night that reshaped the championship.

Kurtz started the round on his Polish league home track with a three-point lead over Zmarzlik. The Australian was not flawless early, finishing third in Heat 2, but his night built strongly from there. He won Heat 6, Heat 16 and Heat 19, and his 12-point tally from the heats was enough to put him straight into the final.

That was the good news.

The bad news for Kurtz was that Zmarzlik also made the final directly, and when it came to the decisive four laps, the Polish rider made the one that mattered count.

Zmarzlik finds the answer when it matters

Zmarzlik’s heat scorecard was solid rather than dominant. He went 2-3-1-2-3 over his five rides, winning Heat 5 and Heat 18, and did enough on countback to earn direct passage to the final.

Bartosz Zmarzlik

Lambert and Jepsen Jensen had to come through the last-chance qualifiers. Lambert won LCQ1 from Patryk Dudek, Jan Kvech and Andzejs Lebedevs, while Jepsen Jensen won LCQ2 ahead of Anders Thomsen, Leon Madsen and Maciej Janowski.

Robert Lambert

Once the four finalists were set, Zmarzlik produced the ride he needed most. Lambert followed him home for second, his best Speedway GP result for some time, while Jepsen Jensen continued his strong 2026 campaign with third. Kurtz finished fourth, leaving with valuable points but not the championship lead.

The SpeedwayGP of Poland, Wroclaw podium – 1) Zmarzlik, 2) Lambert, 3) Jensen

Zmarzlik’s win carried a few layers. It ended a long Speedway GP victory drought, gave him No.30 at the top level, and came at home in Poland on a night when the championship lead was there to be taken.

Kurtz loses the lead, but not the fight

For Kurtz, Wroclaw was not a disaster on the scorecard. He still reached another final and took 14 points from the main meeting. He remains only three points behind Zmarzlik and has been one of the riders most consistently able to put himself into winning positions this season.

Brady Kurtz

The frustration will be that, for the second GP in a row, he had enough raw meeting speed to contend for victory. In Manchester R4, that became a win and the championship lead. In Wroclaw, it finished in fourth place in the final and second in the standings.

There was still plenty to take from the night. Kurtz won three of his five heats, was the top scorer across the programmed rides, and remains right in the championship fight heading to the Swedish round at Malilla on July 11.

Heat 7 changes the Australian story

The harder part of the Wroclaw story for Australia came in Heat 7.

Jack Holder and Jason Doyle were both involved in a first-bend crash with Kacper Woryna. Holder was taken to the hospital by ambulance, and subsequent club updates from Gorzow and Sheffield confirmed he was set for surgery and faces a spell on the sidelines.

Doyle escaped without broken bones, but Belle Vue reported that he was battered and bruised and would miss their Monday Premiership clash with Ipswich.

That crash took both Australians out of the contest and changed the shape of the night. Holder had arrived in Wroclaw third in the championship after back-to-back Manchester finals, while Doyle had been part of the wider Australian strength that made the previous round so notable.

Instead, Holder left the meeting with no points from the round and a significant injury concern, while Doyle was credited with two championship points after his earlier Heat 4 second place.

Fricke’s Manchester high proves hard to repeat

Max Fricke also had a tougher night after his Manchester R3 breakthrough.

The Victorian started with a last place in Heat 4, then looked to have found a way into the meeting when he finished second behind Kurtz in Heat 6 and won Heat 11 ahead of Dudek, Zmarzlik and Nazar Parnitskyi.

That gave Fricke a chance of making the cut, but a third in Heat 13 and a last place in Heat 20 left him 11th overall on six championship points. He also picked up two points from the Sprint race, where he finished third behind Janowski and Lambert.

Fricke remains sixth in the championship on 50 points, but Wroclaw was a reminder that the momentum from Manchester can be difficult to carry when the track, conditions and draw turn against a rider.

Gate four dominates the wins

The Wroclaw scorecard told an interesting story. Gate four was the big producer of wins, accounting for 13 race victories across the meeting. Gate one produced six wins, gate two produced four, while gate three did not produce a single winner.

That made the draw and first-corner positioning especially important, and it also helped explain why several riders had contrasting rides across the night. Getting off gate three and still turning a poor draw into points became difficult, particularly as the meeting settled into its rhythm after the weather delay.

For Australia, the headline moved from Manchester’s high to Wroclaw’s damage limitation. Kurtz remains deep in the title battle, Fricke is still inside the top six, but Holder’s injury and Doyle’s battered exit changed the tone of the campaign.

Two rounds ago, Australia had all three podium places. After Wroclaw, Kurtz is still chasing gold, but the wider Aussie story has become far more complicated

2026 FIM Speedway GP of Poland
Wroclaw Results

Sprint, final and last-chance qualifiers

FIM SGP World Championship standings after round five

Wroclaw heat results

The order shown is first to fourth, except where the official result listed fewer classified riders. Race times were not listed in the official FIM Speedway results view at the time of preparation.