King’s Lynn’s Iversen misses out in GP bid

King's Lynn's Niels-Kristian Iversen failed in his bid for a 2012 GP qualifying spot in yesterday's Croatian semi-final at Gorican.

Iversen and ex-Lynn rider Darcy Ward both missed out on a top five spot to progress to the challenge final in Vetlanda on August 20 for a coveted place in next season's elite series.

Current grand prix star Antonio Lindback topped the qualifiers - dropping just one point in his five rides.

Iversen managed seven points with World U21 champion Ward only able to pick up eight points in the race for the three places on offer for the 2012 event.

A quintet of riders finished on 11 points behind Lindback, which led to a series of run-offs. Matej Zagar won the first ahead of ex-Stars' rider Davey Watt and Martin Vaculik to clinch his passage through, before Danish racer Leon Madsen secured his shock qualification by beating Sebastian Ulamek.

But Vaculik and Ulamek bounced back to survive the final qualification run-off at the expense of Poole's Watt who is likely to claim one of the reserve places in the challenge.

Former grand prix regular Grzegorz Walasek topped the qualifiers at Lonigo, Italy, with Sweden's Peter Ljung triumphant at Daugavpils in the third semi-final.

• GP challenge line up, Vetlanda, August 20: Peter Ljung, Krzysztof Buczkowski, Krzysztof Kasprzak, Simon Gustafsson, Viktor Golubovski, Hans Andersen, Antonio Lindback, Matej Zagar, Sebastian Ulamek, Leon Madsen, Martin Vaculik, Grzegorz Walasek, Piotr Protasiewicz, Bjarne Pedersen, Joonas Kylmakorpi, Jesper B Monberg.