British Champion Craig Cook was on a quest to reach the FIM Speedway Grand Prix elite at the GP Challenge at Russian track Togliatti on Saturday.
Cook recovered from a last place in his first ride to score eleven points and finished fourth overall, behind Artem Laguta, Przemyslaw Pawlicki and Patryk Dudek, who took the three automatic qualification places.
The British champion will now be hoping Dudek continues his impressive form in his SGP debut season and books his place for 2018 via the top eight. That would see former Cardiff wild card Cook race in the World Championship for the first time as a permanent rider.
GP CHALLENGE SCORES: 1 Przemyslaw Pawlicki 13+3, 2 Artem Laguta 13+0, 3 Patryk Dudek 12, 4 Craig Cook 11, 5 Michael Jepsen Jensen 9, 6 Piotr Pawlicki 9, 7 Peter Kildemand 8, 8 Vaclav Milik 6, 9 Kai Huckenbeck 6, 10 Leon Madsen 6, 11 Mateusz Szczepaniak 6, 12 Matej Zagar 6, 13 Gleb Chugunov 5, 14 Martin Smolinski 5, 15 Andrei Kudriashov 2, 16 Roman Lakhbaum 2, 17 Martin Vaculik 1.