Denmark’s Mikkel Michelsen believes taking a more relaxed approach to Speedway GP life paid dividends in 2024 as he bids to make it back-to-back WWK FIM Speedway GP of Germany – Landshut wins this Saturday.
Michelsen enjoyed the best SGP season of his career so far last year, picking up his first-ever Speedway GP win at Landshut’s OneSolar Arena.
Despite suffering multiple fractures when he crashed out of his opening race of the OlyBet FIM Speedway GP of Latvia – Riga on September 7, ending his night and his season, Michelsen still finished seventh in the standings, even though he was unable to score from the last three rounds.
This left him just five points short of the top-six automatic qualification places and denied him a shot at a Speedway GP World Championship medal.
After a long battle to overcome his injuries this winter, Michelsen is determined to take encouragement from a great 2024 campaign as he returns to Landshut. He said: “Even if I had finished 12th in Riga, the top six would have been locked in. But it’s in the past. I can’t really get stuck in that kind of mentality and think back to what could have been.
“I was heading in the right direction and that’s all I can take away from last year. I found my mojo and I found systems that work for me. Equipment is one thing, but also the team – how we approach the GPs, how we do everything. It just made me feel so much more relaxed.
“The racing I enjoyed the most last year was probably the GP racing, looking at the season overall. Obviously, I am going to take that and implement it into my league racing this year.
“I want to have a somewhat more relaxed approach – still professional and serious, but a more relaxed approach to everything. I shouldn’t forget I am doing something I love for a living, and it’s important to have fun along the way.
“It’s not my first rodeo now. I have been in the GP for a few years, and it has been very mediocre at best. But last year it seemed like I had kind of cracked the code, which was really nice.”
Michelsen believes taking Speedway GP life on race at a time – as cliched as it sounds – makes all the difference in managing the pressure of competing on the sport’s biggest stage.
He said: “I found it easier approaching the GPs as any other meeting. It’s just another day on the bike, doing what I love doing and just taking it race by race.
“I am also taking it one round at a time. Obviously, you have a goal as to where you would prefer to be at the end of the season, but there’s also that whole process between the first GP and the last one. I am not really focusing on the prize, but the individual rounds. Taking it step by step has been the right approach for me.”
Despite spending months overcoming injuries to his shoulder, elbow and heel, Michelsen has started 2025 in fine form with Polish club Torun.
Asked what his expectations are going into the SGP season, he replied: “If everything had gone the way I was hoping it was going last year, it would have been easier to answer that question. The overall goal is to reach the top six or seven now. It always is.
“I think we were on the way to achieving something more than the top six last year, but I am not going to sit here and think about what could have been.
"It ended the way it did, and I am excited to get this season started. Hopefully I can have an injury-free season with something to fight for at the end.
“We are going to take it round by round, be consistent like I was from the third round in Landshut last year, make semi-finals, try and turn them into finals and we will start looking at the leaderboard when we get to the last two rounds and see what we are fighting for.
“Of course, world champion is what we all want to become. It’s the one thing I don’t have on my CV. It’s a childhood dream I have always had.
“If this year is going to be the year … I would like to hope so. But it’s a long season and there are a lot of variables. You don’t really know what’s going to happen. Nothing is a given in this life.”