On a reconfigured Bikernieki oval, Bartosz Zmarzlik won the 2026 FIM Speedway Grand Prix of Latvia to reclaim the world championship lead from Brady Kurtz. The Pole’s third Riga victory in four seasons shifted a title fight that now covers just 10 points across three riders.
Inside gate, familiar outcome
The final rested on the start. Zmarzlik chose the inside line and held it cleanly through the first turn, while Robert Lambert chased from the outside and Kurtz found himself pinned wide from gate four. Kacper Woryna took fourth.
Three men, ten points
Post-round standings show Zmarzlik on 129 points, Kurtz on 125 and Lambert on 119. Forty-eight championship points remain available, and Kurtz had come within a single point of denying Zmarzlik a sixth crown in 2025. The renewal of that contest, with Lambert surging into range, now defines the series.
Bikernieki marked its 50th anniversary with widened corners, fresh banking and a relaid surface. The circuit that had given Zmarzlik his first two Riga wins — in 2023 and 2024, before Kurtz broke that streak in 2025 — rewarded him again on the new shape.
“The boys push me all the time, but I got into the final again. This is exciting,” he told reporters afterwards. Zmarzlik is chasing a seventh individual world title, a figure no rider has reached.
The round followed Denmark’s qualification for the World Cup Final on the same shale the night before. For Zmarzlik, it was one more night in a city that keeps giving, and one more step into a record book that already carries only his name at the top.
