Bewley takes stunning win in front of raucous Cardiff crowd ahead of Lambert

Dan Bewley blew the roof off the Principality Stadium by becoming the first home rider to win the British GP twice, ahead of Robert Lambert.

Fresh after winning the Speedway of Nations for Great Britain, the pair sent the home crowd into raptures by winning their semi-finals after both had seemed set to be eliminated at various points in a dead-heat tie after the qualifiers.

But instead Poland’s Maciej Janowski missed out by the narrowest of margins, and Bewley took full advantage – exploding out of gate one in the final and never looking back as a deafening crowd roared him home.

Lambert rockets up to second in the world standings, 21 points behind Bartosz Zmarzlik who missed out on the semi-finals for the first time since the 2019 Czech Republic GP over five years ago.

Fredrik Lindgren finished third in the final to also cut his gap to the top to 23 points, but it was an opportunity missed for Jack Holder and Mikkel Michelsen who both exited in the semi-finals and drop off the championship podium.

Zmarzlik never looked comfortable on the Cardiff shale despite vociferous Polish support, but returns home for the next grand prix in Wroclaw in a fortnight.

Like Bewley, Lambert started strong but faded towards the end of the heats and his night appeared to be over end with both Brits tied on nine points alongside Janowski and Martin Vaculik and only three semi-final berths remaining.

Lambert had drawn a blank in the final heat of the night, won by Vaculik, but it was the Janowski – appearing at the Principality Stadium as a substitute for the injured Tai Woffinden – who ultimately missed out.

Starting his semi-final from the unfancied gate two, Lambert responded in fine style though and harried Lindgren for all four laps before finally sneaking past by a matter of inches on the run to the line.

The Cardiff crowd were still pulsating from that rush of adrenaline when Bewley fired himself into the final in the second semi-final, and there was nothing Lambert, Lindgren or Dominik Kubera could do to stop him from taking a famous victory in the final.

His bumper 24-point haul from the weekend including his Sprint victory on Friday fire him to just two points behind the top six who qualify automatically for next year’s FIM Speedway Grand Prix, while wildcard Tom Brennan picked up two second places and six championship points for his efforts.