In his third start in Speedway Euro Championship, Nicki Pedersen reached his third medal. However he's still waiting for wearing a gold one, two silvers and bronze bring respect and admiration.
Along with Emil Sayfutdinov, he's the only rider who hasn't crossed the finish line as last even once. In the past season, he was on the podium each time he started (2 wins, 1 second, 1 third). Nicki Pedersen ended his heats as second for seventeen times. It's the most among the all participants of SEC 2015.
These simple statistics show that it's been a good season for Dane. It all started from the win at MotoArena. When it seemed that noone would be able to beat amazing Sayfutdinov, Pedersen found the perfect setup for the start and with no bigger problems defeated the rest.
In Landshut, everything was going well for Pedersen from the very beginning. He was ending his heats as first or at second position. When everybody thought that direct promotion to the final is right around the corner, Pedersen had to accept superiority of Sayfutdinov and what came next, had to go to the final through the race-off heat.
Then, right after the start, his bike got jointed with Tomasz Gollob's one and Dane fell on the track. Pole was excluded from the repeat, so it was clear that Pedersen would end SEC round at the podium for the second time in a row. In the final, he got defeated only by the cycle's leader and after two rounds, his loss to Russian was only 2 points.
In Kumla, Pedersen was gethering 'twos'. Five heats of the main series brought 10 points. In the final heat, he finished as last, but the referee decided to exclude Antonio Lindbaeck (who was third) for crossing the line with both wheels. With that luck, Pedersen was at the podium again.
The round in Ostrów Wielkopolski was very nervous, because from the beginning, his main rival for the silver medal, Antonio Lindbaeck showed some phenomenal form. Heat by heat, he was getting closer and closer to Dane. Right before the final, Pedersen asked: "What's the situation in the classification?" and got the answer: "You've got two points of advantage over Antonio". That was enough to motivate "Power" even more.
Great start, perfect solving of the first corner and Nicki Pedersen for the fourth time in SEC ended at the highest step of the podium. That was enough only to reach the 2nd place overall, however after the meeting, Dane couldn't hide his joy after a well done job.
- Before the season, I put a clear aim - to be in the TOP3 of the tournament and I made it happen. For the whole time, in the back of my head, I had a thought of Emil Sayfutdinov winning in last year and to beat him, I had to do something special. As you know, I lost some speed during the season, but don't want to use it as an excuse.
