IT looks like Ryan Sullivan could have to pin his hopes on a seeded place if he wants to compete in the World Championship Grand Prix next season.

The 29-year-old Australian, who finished third on the podium behind champion Tony Rickardsson and Jason Crump in 2002, is staring GP elimination in the face with two rounds to go.

Sullivan, who has been considered a genuine World title contender for the past three or four years, slipped out of contention for an overall top eight-place, and automatic qualification for next year's series, in Krsko on Saturday.

The Pirates rider relinquished a second-place position in heat eight as he was passed by Piotr Protasiewicz and finished third to put himself into an early eliminator.

Then the Poole RIAS heat leader was dumped out of the Slovenian GP when he was pipped for second by home favourite Matej Zagar in heat 12 in front of a partisan 12,000 crowd in the Matije Gubca Stadium.

Sullivan, who hasn't finished outside of the top 10 since he made his GP debut in 1998, looked as though he was going to progress into the main event as he went into the last lap behind race leader Mikael Max.

Flyin' Ryan had taken the lead after trapping well out of gate one.

But the Australian was passed on the inside by Max and Zagar on the third bend before retaliating by slipping back past the Slovenian on the fourth corner of the third lap.

As Max swept on to race victory, Sullivan drifted a little bit wide on the final bend of the last circuit and Zagar shot past him on the inside with his front wheel on the white line to deny the Australian second place by a wheel's length.

Zagar, this year's European champion, knew it had been a close run thing. He said: "For a second, I thought I had lost it. But I pushed really hard and managed to pass Ryan on the last bend."

Sullivan, who has also finished seventh (1998), 10th (1999), ninth (2000), fourth (2001) and ninth (2003) in the GP, is still 12th in this year's rankings - but now a mammoth 15 points adrift of a top-eight place.

It was all a far cry from his opening heat performance in Krsko when he finished a comfortable second place behind Andreas Jonsson in the opening race.

Just over two weeks ago, Poole chief Matt Ford stressed he felt Sullivan was still a genuine contender to lift the World title.

On current form, however, the Melbourne-born racer needs to quickly rediscover the impressive form that saw him finish fourth in the Czech GP in Prague in May if he is to have any chance of leaping back into the top eight.

Sullivan, who has won four GP rounds out of the 50 he has taken part in, has to fly at Bydgoszcz, Poland, on September 18 and at Hamar, Norway, on October 2.

If not, then he has to hope he's done enough after those meetings to secure one of the six seeded places that will be awarded by the FIM at the conclusion of this year's series.

Only then will Sullivan know if he is going to have to put his dream of becoming individual World champion on hold for at least 12 months.

Bjarne Pedersen, Poole's other GP rider, was involved in the race of the night at Krsko when he pipped Tomasz Gollob for second place in heat 17.

In a thrilling duel behind race winner Max, the Pole and Dane swapped second and third places on several occasions before they entered the final lap.

Pedersen then dug deep to dive hard inside Gollob on the first bend and held off the Pole's desperate wide last-corner swoop to follow Max home. The Pirate gated brilliantly to sweep outside Crump on the second bend to take the chequered flag in heat 22 and move into the semi-final.

But Pedersen had a tough draw off gate three, was squeezed out going into the first turn and had to be content with last place and 11 GP points.

He moved up from eighth to sixth in the overall standings and doubled his tally above ninth spot from two to four points.

More importantly, however, the Dane secured a main event berth at Bydgoszcz in two weeks time.

Ex-Pirate Rickardsson was in inspirational form as he scorched to his 13th GP victory by reeling off five straight heat wins.