Once again Dmitry Koltakov’s superiority was evident as he produced another perfect score for the second day of the LUKOIL FIM Ice Speedway Gladiators World Championship in Berlin. In front of an admiring crowd he produced his second successive maximum and extended his lead at the top to an amazing 25 points having dropped only four points throughout the whole series so far.
Second in the Final was Dinar Valeev with a great improvement on his day one performance and his best result to date to beat Dmitri Khomitsevich and relegate Daniil Ivanov once again to fourth spot.
Martin Haarahiltunen scored freely in the qualifying races, dropping points only to Koltakov and Ivanov. However, his semi-final ride ended in disaster after an epic clash with Dmitri Khomitsevich when he fell heavily on the final bend in a last effort to overtake the Russian. Fortunately he was able to walk unaided back to the pits and his racing afternoon was over but his 13 points total keeps him in fourth place overall.
Russian Sergey Karachintsev withdrew from the meeting after his first ride after aggravating a spike injury he had sustained on Saturday. Another casualty was Sweden’s Ove Ledström who was involved in a huge crash with Jan Klatovsky in Heat 3. Ledström was disqualified and took a trip to hospital for a precautionary check on a leg injury. Thankfully nothing is broken and only bruising was diagnosed.
Austrians Franz Zorn and Harald Simon again relished the conditions and both qualified for the semi-finals. Czech Republic rider Jan Klatovsky continued his return to form finishing in seventh position.
Leading Scorers:
1.Dimitry Koltakov (Russia) 122
2. Daniil Ivanov (Russia) 97
3. Dimitri Khomitsevich (Russia) 92
4. Sergey Karachintsev (Russia) 68
5. Martin Haarahiltunen (Sweden) 68
6. Harald Simon (Austria) 46
7. Dinar Valeev (Russia) 40
8. Franz Zorn (Austria) 40
9. Niclas Svensson (Sweden) 35
FIM Communications