BJARNE Pedersen catapulted himself into the Grand Prix top six with an impressive third-place performance in Eskilstuna (May 14).

The Pirates star finished top of the qualifying heats with 13 points after reeling off three heat wins, including one over Swedish favourite Tony Rickardsson.

But he was outfoxed by the veteran Swede in both his semi-final and final, despite out-gating his former Poole RIAS team-mate three times in those races, which included a re-run.

It was reigning world champion Jason Crump, however, who blasted from third to first past both runner-up Rickardsson and Pedersen to win a re-run of the final.

The Dane, however, will be mightily pleased he is back in the World Championship GP chase especially as he had produced such a disappointing display in the first round at Wroclaw, Poland, where he only got four points.

He leapfrogged from 13th to sixth in the overall standings after making only his third final appearance in the Swedish GP on Saturday in front of a sell-out 15,000 crowd.

And with just a little bit more good luck, Pedersen - who has lined up in 21 GPs since his debut in 2002 - could so easily have taken his second GP crown following his triumph in Wroclaw last May.

Pedersen's performance in Eskilstuna also made a mockery of the ludicrously generous 66-1 odds placed on him by bookmakers William Hill to win this year's series.

Only GP new boy Tomasz Chrzanowski was considered even more of an outsider for glory in the overall series and at Eskilstuna going into Saturday's meeting.

Which just about shows how little William Hill know about setting speedway odds, especially considering the quietly spoken, but fully determined, Dane held a top eight place in the series for most of last year.

Pedersen, third in the Norwegian GP in 2003 after he had led the final only for the race to be stopped because of an exclusion behind him, smartly lowered Rickardsson's colours in heat 19 at the Smedstadion to head the qualifiers.

The Poole rider swept outside the Swede on the third bend of the second lap before going on to take the chequered flag.

Pedersen out-gated Rickardsson in the first semi-final, but the Swede roared past him on the inside down the back straight leaving the Dane to brilliantly peg his Pirates team-mate Antonio Lindback behind in third.

The Poole man still had first choice of gates in the final because new GP rules brought in this year dictate that placings from the qualifying rounds determine starting positions in heat 23, not semi-final results.

So Pedersen went off gate one again and led Rickardsson for a lap before the Swede stormed inside him on the first bend of the second circuit. Crump slipped inside the Pirate down the back straight third time around into second and then Pedersen took a big fall after Nicki Pedersen's back wheel clipped his bike and sent him sprawling into the safety air fence.

Fortunately, Bjarne escaped injury, picked himself up off the track and promptly out-gated Rickardsson and Crump again in the re-run of the final.

Rickardsson, once more, stormed inside the Poole man down the back straight to lead before Bjarne dived inside him coming off the second bend of the second lap to regain first place.

Agonisingly for Bjarne, though, at the same time as he was passing Rickardsson, Crump swept outside both of them into the lead.

It was too much to ask the Pirate to retaliate again and he also lost out on second place to Rickardsson on the third lap.

A podium place, however, will still give Bjarne a big boost as he looks ahead to the Slovenian GP in Krsko on Saturday, May 28.

He is now on course for the top-six finish he set himself before the start of the season.

His Eskilstuna display should also force William Hill to finally slash their odds for Pedersen. And about time too!

Swedish GP, Eskilstuna,

Qualifying: 1 Bjarne Pedersen (2-3-2-3-3) 13, 2 Leigh Adams (3-2-3-2-3) 13, 3 Nicki Pedersen (3-2-2-3-3) 13, 4 Tony Rickardsson (0-3-3-3-2) 11, 5 Jason Crump (2-3-3-0-2) 10, 6 Antonio Lindback (2-1-2-0-3) 8, 7 Hans Andersen (2-3-2-1-fell exc) 8, 8 Kenneth Bjerre (3-2-0-2-1) 8, 9 Scott Nicholls (exc tapes-2-1-2-2) 7, 10 Tomasz Gollob (1-0-1-3-1) 6, 11 Greg Hancock (1-1-3-0-1) 6, 12 Rune Holta (1-1-0-2-2) 6, 13 Tomasz Chrzanowski (3-0-0-1-0) 4, 14 Lee Richardson (0-1-1-ret-1) 3, 15 Ryan Sullivan (1-0-1-1-0) 3, 16 Andreas Jonsson (0-0-exc tapes-1-0) 1. Reserves: Mikael Max (0) 0, Peter Nahlin (ret) 0.

Ht 1: Adams, Crump, Holta, Richardson.

Ht 2: N Pedersen, Lindback, Gollob, Rickardsson.

Ht 3: Chrzanowski, Andersen, Sullivan, Jonsson.

Ht 4: (re-run) Bjerre, B Pedersen, Hancock, Max, Nicholls (excluded tapes).

Ht 5: B Pedersen, N Pedersen, Holta, Jonsson.

Ht 6: Rickardsson, Adams, Hancock, Chrzanowski.

Ht 7: Andersen, Bjerre, Richardson, Gollob.

Ht 8: Crump, Nicholls, Lindback, Sullivan.

Ht 9: Rickardsson, Andersen, Nicholls, Holta.

Ht 10: Adams, N Pedersen, Sullivan, Bjerre.

Ht 11: (re-run) Hancock, Lindback, Richardson, Nahlin (retired), Jonsson (excluded tapes).

Ht 12: Crump, B Pedersen, Gollob, Chrzanowski.

Ht 13: Gollob, Holta, Sullivan, Hancock.

Ht 14: B Pedersen, Adams, Andersen, Lindback.

Ht 15: N Pedersen, Nicholls, Chrzanowski, Richardson (retired).

Ht 16: Rickardsson, Bjerre, Jonsson, Crump.

Ht 17: Lindback, Holta, Bjerre, Chrzanowski.

Ht 18: Adams, Nicholls, Gollob, Jonsson.

Ht 19: B Pedersen, Rickardsson, Richardson, Sullivan.

Ht 20: (re-run) N Pedersen, Crump, Hancock, Andersen (fell excluded).

Semi-final 1: Rickardsson, B Pedersen, Lindback, Bjerre.

Semi-final 2: N Pedersen, Crump, Andersen, Adams.

Final: (re-run) Crump, Rickardsson, B Pedersen, N Pedersen (excluded unfair riding).

Grand Prix standings - (after two rounds of nine): 1 Rickardsson 45, 2 Crump 43, 3 Adams 33, 4 N Pedersen 26, 5 Lindback 24, 6 B Pedersen 22, 7 Hancock 17, 8 Nicholls 13, 9 Gollob 12, 10 Hampel 10, 11 Andersen 10, 12 Sullivan 10, 13 Jonsson 9, 14 Rickardsson 8, 15 Chrzanowski 8.

Story so far: Apr 30, European GP at Wroclaw, Poland, 1 Rickardsson, 2 Adams, 3 Crump, 4 Lindback.

Remaining rounds: May 28, Slovenian GP, Krsko. Jun 11, British GP, Cardiff. Jun 25, Danish GP, Copenhagen. Jul 9, Czech Republic GP, Prague. Aug 13, Scandinavian GP, Malilla. Aug 27, Polish GP, Bydgoszcz. Sep 10, Italian GP, Lonigo.