PIRATES skipper Ryan Sullivan has set his sights on a top eight finish in this year's Grand Prix World Championship competition.

The 30-year-old Australian - who received a wild card into this season's series following a 2004 campaign maligned with mechanical gremlins - has suffered a difficult start to 2005.

Sullivan narrowly missed the cut for the semi-final places at the European GP in Wroclaw, Poland on April 30 and was disappointed to score just seven points from his five rides.

However, Flyin' Ryan's World Championship fortunes then took a dramatic turn for the worse on May 14 in Eskilstuna, Sweden.

Having woken up with severe stomach cramps on the Friday night, which confined him to his motorhome bed throughout the Saturday, Sullivan was only able to net three points from five races.

Despite only accruing 10 championship points from his opening two rounds, the awesome Aussie is hopeful that his GP fortunes will improve over the coming months, starting with tomorrow's Slovenian GP in Krsko.

Currently, Sullivan is placed 11th in the overall standings and will surely be looking to rediscover the incredible form that helped him finish third in the 2002 series behind Tony Rickardsson and Jason Crump.

Looking back on the previous two rounds, Sullivan said: "The first GP in Poland was a disaster for me and the second one was even worse.

"To be honest, I don't remember a lot about the Swedish GP. I felt so ill and lethargic in Eskilstuna that I almost pulled out of the meeting at one point.

"I woke up Friday night feeling very sick because I had such severe stomach cramps. On Saturday morning, I stopped throwing up, although I still couldn't eat anything.

"In the end, I just stayed in the motorhome, had some water and then tried to get on with the job in the evening.

"It may not have been the best preparation for a GP but when it's the World Championship you have to give it a go."

Commenting on his aspirations for the remainder of the campaign, Sullivan added: "I have been starting to score much more consistently for my clubs in recent weeks. So with that in mind, it is up to me to compose myself, make sure I have a good couple of rounds and move myself into the top eight.

"That is definitely the plan for me now as I need a top eight finish to gain automatic qualification for the 2006 series.

"Obviously I am not totally happy with how things have gone so far but I have made a lot of progress and things seem to be working at the moment.

"I have had a completely new set of bikes for this year and a totally new set-up from 2004. It is going to take us a while to finish setting everything up but I feel that we're getting there now.

"We have got the bikes running well, now it's just a case of fine tuning them and setting them up the way I feel most comfortable with.

"It's good that we are having this long break between Poole's meetings with Peterborough and Oxford (Wednesday, June 1).

"The break gives me a chance to test a few things.

"Although I'm not totally happy yet with the bikes, I will continue to make changes and I think that once I get my equipment sorted out, things will go a lot better."