Great Britain racer Dan Bewley admits it’s “an honour” to compete again five-time Speedway GP world champion Bartosz Zmarzlik for the sport’s biggest prize, but insisted “it would be very cool to beat him.”
Bewley starts 2025 among the Speedway GP world title contenders when the series launches with the WWK FIM Speedway GP of Germany – Landshut next Saturday.
The Cumbrian raced to a career-best fourth place in the 2024 Speedway GP World Championship and is among the riders facing the challenge of denying Zmarzlik a record-equalling sixth world title – an unprecedented fourth in as many years.
Zmarzlik has already secured his place among the sport’s all-time greats. And while Bewley loves competing against another gifted natural talent on the bike, he would also love to come out on top.
The Belle Vue and Wroclaw hero said: “He’s good and he has won for the last few years, but I wouldn’t mind winning too. We will just take it race by race.
“I have a lot of respect for him. I watched him when I was younger and first started. From the outside, I can see that he has got better over the years. It’s cool to race against him.
“But as cool as it is to race against him, and I have a lot of respect for him, it would be very cool to beat him too. Whether that’s in a round or for the championship, there are certain riders it’s a little bit of an honour to race against, and he is in that category for me.”
Zmarzlik is set to carry a huge weight of expectation on his shoulders as history beckons. But Bewley believes the Pole’s love of racing will make that burden easier to bear.
He said: “I don’t know how he looks at it; it depends how much he cares what people say. I feel like the moment he has one bad meeting, people say ‘that’s it! He’s finished.’ If he reads into that, which I am sure he doesn’t, then he would have a few not-very-nice moments.
“I think in a way, and in certain things, we might be a little bit similar. I think he just enjoys riding his bike too. I think he loves it, and we are pretty similar in that way.”