Hancock aiming for top three after return to form

The two-time world champion, who is currently seventh with 57 points, was left with head and neck injuries after being knocked out in a crash at Bydgoszcz in April.

The 43-year-old American failed to reach the semi-finals at the Swedish and Czech SGP events that followed but returned to form with a fourth in Gorzow last week.

He said: “I’ve never had to take so much time off racing to recover and I had to do it at that point after I crashed. It’s a long season and I want to be in it until the end of the year and race every World Championship round. Now I’m feeling good again, so watch out!

“Knock on wood, I’ll try to keep it on two wheels. Accidents are one thing. They happen. But it’s about trying to make them as little as possible and keeping yourself in shape.

“I’m looking forward to Copenhagen on June 29. It should be another good round for me after another couple of weeks of building the form. So I can’t wait to be there.

“It was a great night in Gorzow. I’m so happy the result turned out much better. I had a decent one in Cardiff and getting to the final last weekend makes me think things are climbing all the time.

“They’re getting better all the time and I’m super happy with the result. I just wanted to be on the podium at the end.”

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS: 1 Emil Sayfutdinov 84, 2 Tai Woffinden 73, 3 Chris Holder 68, 4 Jaroslaw Hampel 66, 5 Nicki Pedersen 64, 6 Niels-Kristian Iversen 60, 7 Greg Hancock 57, 8 Tomasz Gollob 52, 9 Krzysztof Kasprzak 48, 10 Matej Zagar 48, 11 Fredrik Lindgren 47, 12 Andreas Jonsson 39, 13 Martin Vaculik 33, 14 Antonio Lindback 26, 15 Darcy Ward 25, 16 Ales Dryml 7, 17 Chris Harris 7, 18 Krzysztof Buczkowski 6, 19 Linus Sundstrom 6, 20 Bartosz Zmarzlik 6, 21 Josef Franc 2, 22 Jason Bunyan 1, 23 Craig Cook 1, 24 Josh Auty 1.