DOYLE'S WINTER OF CHANGE

Aussie ace Jason Doyle hopes a “massive change” made in the winter months will end his Speedway GP frustration in 2023.

The Newcastle-born star finished 10^th in the 2022 Speedway GP World Championship and needed a wild card spot from the SGP Commission to retain his place in the series.

The 2017 world champion admits he simply didn’t have the pace to reach his previous level on the sport’s biggest stage.

But he hopes some off-season changes will help him hit better form this time around.

Assessing his 2022 campaign, Doyle pulled no punches. “I was terrible last season,” he admitted to the Ipswich Witches official website.

“I was at a point in the season where nothing was working. The GPs were very hard to go to because I knew I didn’t have the speed to match the boys and it was very frustrating to turn up on a Saturday and know I wasn’t even close to them in qualifying, and then to have to race them in the meeting.

“But we’ve made a massive change in the winter and I’m very happy what we’ve done. Hopefully it is a good start to something good for me in the GPs.”

Before then, Doyle hopes to launch the SGB Premiership season on a high with Ipswich. He joins the likes of former world No.3 Emil Sayfutdinov, Danny King, Erik Riss, Keynan Rew, Danyon Hume and Joe Thompson in a stellar side.

There’s no doubt Doyle has title aspirations ahead of Witches’ opening match at home to Peterborough on Thursday.

“We’re in it to win it,” he said. “A good start against Peterborough is our first goal. Our first meeting against Nicki (Pedersen) and Niels-Kristian (Iversen) is going to be good for me and Emil to show them the right way around Ipswich – and hopefully come out with that win.

“Having Nicki back in British Speedway is amazing, so now we’ve got about six of the top 20 riders in the world back in Britain.

“For fans it must be great to have that happen after so many years without them.”

While Doyle is keen to deliver a strong start for his side, he’s also urging Witches to pace themselves.

He said: “It’s a long year so we need to ride safe early on. I say this all the time. It’s not about winning everything at this time of the year, although of course that’s nice. Last year we were top of the table for about 90 percent of the time and didn’t get to the final. That’s not the way we want it this year.

“In saying that, the atmosphere in the club is electrifying. There is already a lot more hope this year than last with the team Chris Louis and Ritchie Hawkins have put together.

“We need to help the young kids in our team, but also having Emil is a massive thing for us guys to have that firepower this year.”