Sayfutdinov: I’m jealous. I want gold after the winter break

Emil Sayfutdinov had a breakthrough season in 2019. Once again he won gold in the PGE Ekstraliga with his Leszno team, but individually he made the rostrum in the Speedway Grand Prix series after 10 years.

Individually he had made the rostrum in the SGP series which was a bit of a breakthorugh. After ten years of absence he finished the series with a bronze medal and broke the curse of him being eliminated in the semifinals.

– I had a goal for this season: Win gold. Six points isn’t much but Bartosz was the better man and big congratulations to him. He deserved it because he worked very heard for it, like we all did. I envy him. I want to be World Champion too. But then again, I am also glad that after the Warsaw round, which was poor for me, I ended up where I did. It is more hard work for me in the winter break as I am aiming to achieve my goal next year – explained Emil.

All the best riders in the world are coming back to Warsaw on the 16th of May 2020 for the PZM Warsaw FIM SGP of Poland. Tickets are selling extremely well and PGE Narodowy is expected to be sold out again. It is one of those rounds where a capacity crowd will be cheering the riders on. Does that help you to ride better? – For sure it does. It’s always nice to see a packed stadium. You know that they came to watch you and you want to show some good racing and produce some good results. Every fan wants to see quality racing and a good atmosphere and a sizeable crowd definitely works for me. I hope that it will be just as good as in previous years – added world number 3.

The track on PGE Narodowy does not bring many good memories for the Russian. He rode there 4 times in the GP and never reached the semifinal. The closest he got to it was in 2018 where he finished 9th scoring 8 points. – It’s hard to explain why, but it was always a tough round for me. There was always something standing in my way, crashes or other incidents. I had a good feeling this year but I could not set my bikes up for the track. I think I have an engine which I have picked for the next years round and we’ll see if I can finally end this bad luck. I have to have a goal set up but we also have to put the work in both me and my team – summed up the Fogo Unia Leszno rider for speedwayekstraliga.pl.

Recently Emil took part in a Karting event at Bydgoszcz with his son. They have also been riding motocross together. Does that mean we will see Emil junior following in his fathers footsteps? – In all honesty it’s all up to him. We went Go Karting as my friends from Polonia Bydgoszcz had invited me over. I took my family with me and I managed to come 2nd. Great fun and the boy loved it too. He does try to ride motocross too, he also have a quad bike and he likes riding that. He does enjoy speedway as he follows my career and watches my races either in PGE Ekstraliga or the SGP. He has his little toy speedway bikes and he makes his own tracks and plays with them, but I don’t want to push him too much. If I see that he wants to take it up I will help him up, for sure. The important thing is that he’s kind a and a good person and he can always count on me if he needs it– said Sayfutdinov.

Tickets for 2020 PZM Warsaw FIM SGP of Poland: https://www.kupbilet.pl/sgp2020