Tony Rickardsson took a massive step towards equalling the legendary Ivan Mauger's record six world titles when he won an incident-packed British Grand Prix meeting in front of a 38,000 crowd at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium on Saturday.

The Swedish star made it three GP wins out of four this season, and with all his major rivals performing well below par, he has moved a hefty 32 points clear at the head of the leaderboard.

As Rickardsson celebrated winning a spectacular final ahead of Poland's Jaroslaw Hampel, who was making a successful return from injury, and Danes Bjarne Pedersen and Hans Andersen, the championship aspirations of Jason Crump, Nicki Pedersen, Leigh Adams and Oxford skipper Greg Hancock were left floundering.

Defending champion Crump, who started the night 11 points adrift of Rickardsson, was sensationally excluded in three of his five rides to muster just four points in one of his worst GP results for years.

Pedersen missed the cut for the semi-finals with six points, while Adams also failed to reach the last eight.

The meeting was littered with crashes and even Rickardsson himself bounced off the air-fence in his first race after clashing with David Norris.

The British wildcard was excluded and Rickardsson dusted himself down to win the re-run and lay the foundations for another fantastic victory.

After the 17th grand prix win of his career and his second at Cardiff, where he also won in 2001, Rickardsson, 34, said: "I have been riding for 15 years, doing between 500 and 600 races a season, and I am now 34, but I think I did the best first corner of my life in the final.

"I just put my back wheel against the fence and it worked perfectly."

British GP result: Rickardsson 25, Hampel 20, B Pedersen 18, Andersen 16, Jonsson 12, Nicholls 9, Gollob 8, Lindback 8, Adams 7, Chrzanowski 7, Hancock 6, Pedersen 6, Richardson 5, Crump 4, Norris 4, Sullivan 1

Overall GP standings: Rickardsson 95, Crump 63, N Pedersen 52, Adams 49, B Pedersen 43, Andersen 35, Lindback 35, Hancock 31, Gollob 30, Hampel 30, Nicholls 30, Jonsson 24, Sullivan 24, Chrzanowski 17, Richardson 16.

Oxford Silver Machine will wait on the fitness of Greg Hancock before naming their team to face Ipswich away in the Elite League tonight. The match is being televised on Sky Sports.

Oxford's dashing Dane, Niels Kristian Iversen, landed the Welsh Open Championship at Newport yesterday, beating Adams Shields and Magnus Zetterstrom.