The 2025 FIM Ice Speedway World Championship powered by Anlas, Kineo and HKC Koopmann fires into life this coming Saturday (1 February) with the Qualifying Round staged at Örnsköldsvik in Sweden where the majority of the field that will contest this year’s two Finals will be decided.
- Örnsköldsvik gets 2025 FIM Ice Speedway World Championship under way
- Talented field assemble in Sweden for vital Qualifying Round
- Mixture of youth and experience in action on Saturday
This will be the seventh time in eight years that the Swedish municipality’s Kallehov circuit has hosted a Qualifying Round and most competitors should be familiar with the venue located on the country’s icy east coast overlooking the Gulf of Bothnia, five-hundred-and-thirty kilometres north of capital city Stockholm.
At stake are a potentially career-changing eight places at this season’s Finals at Inzell in Germany on 14-16 March and Heerenveen in the Netherlands on 4-6 April where the riders who progress via Örnsköldsvik will face reigning and three-time champion Martin Haarahiltunen from Sweden along with the remainder of last season’s top-five finishers led by Germany’s Max Niedermaier from the Finnish pairing of Heikki Huusko and veteran Aki Ala-Riihimäki and Stefan Svensson from Sweden.
While a question mark remains over the participation in the Finals of Svensson, who at the age of sixty-five won last year’s championship finale in Heerenveen before announcing his retirement, his son Niclas Svensson will be lining up at Örnsköldsvik alongside sixteen fellow hopefuls representing eight nations.
Svensson will not be the only rider with a famous father in action in Sweden. German-born Luca Bauer – who races for Italy – is following in the illustrious footsteps of his father, Günther, who is an undisputed Ice Speedway legend and widely regarded as one of Germany’s finest-ever competitors in this highly-specialised discipline.
Both riders face stiff opposition from a field that combines youthful enthusiasm with hard-earned experience and there are a number of riders who will be in action on Saturday who either competed in last season’s FIM Ice Speedway World Championship or attempted to make the cut in Örnsköldsvik in 2024.
With his cousin Max, who won a dramatic run-off with Huusko to top last season’s Qualifying Round, assured of a place in the Finals after finishing the 2024 series in second, Maximilian Niedermaier will represent his famous family in Örnsköldsvik. He scored a point at last season’s concluding Final at Heerenveen, but with eight others of Saturday’s competitors also finishing 2024 with FIM Ice Speedway World Championship points the German faces a fierce fight.
Included among these racers are Finland’s Max Koivula who was seventh last year with a season-best finish of fifth, Sweden’s Jimmy Hörnell Lidfalk who was tenth and Dutch all-rounder Jasper Iwema – an accomplished road racer who in the past has contested the FIM Moto2™, Moto3™ and MotoE™ Grand Prix series – who finished 2024 in twelfth.
All three progressed to the 2024 Finals via the Qualifying Round and will be hoping for repeat performances, though this is only the first step the entire field must negotiate just to earn the right to line up against Haarahiltunen who is aiming to win his fourth consecutive title in 2025.