BJARNE Pedersen clung on to the vital eighth spot in the overall Grand Prix standings after a troublesome rut cost him and his Pirates team-mate Ryan Sullivan dear in the Scandinavian round in Ullevi Stadium.

The Dane went into the sixth round of this year's World Championship one point ahead of ninth-placed Lee Richardson and his heat 22 exit in Gothenburg saw Pedersen pick up eight GP points.

It was enough to keep the Poole RIAS rider in the final automatic spot to qualify for automatic qualification into the 2005 GP series.

But Pedersen has a pack of hungry wolves hunting him with only three rounds of this season's competition to go, including Sullivan, who bowed out in Ullevi after heat 11 with only four GP points.

The Australian slipped down one place to 12th overall, after man-of-the-moment Hans Andersen took a surprise win in Gothenburg to jump seven places and immediately above Sullivan.

Other racers chasing Pedersen hard for a top eight finish at the end of the event are Richardson, Jarek Hampel and Scott Nicholls, with only 15 points separating them all.

Poole's Antonio Lindback, who has already booked his 2005 GP place after winning the Grand Final of the qualifiers, learnt how tough it will be to compete regularly with the best.

The 19-year-old bowed out after only two races in Gothenburg where he made his GP debut as a wild card, although it will have been a valuable night's work for the young Swede.

Pedersen's hopes of finishing higher than joint ninth in Ullevi started to flounder when his bike lifted violently after he'd hit the troublesome rut in the track on the fourth bend while lying third behind Tomasz Gollob and Nicholls.

The Dane recovered to pass Peter Karlsson after slipping to the back of the field to finish third and then won a heat 18 eliminator by outgating Andreas Jonsson and Hampel and scorching on to victory.

But Pedersen bowed out by trailing in third in heat 22 after he had blasted from fourth to second coming off the second bend past Jason Crump and Peter Karlsson.

Crump, however, responded by immediately driving hard under Pedersen to regain second spot before they went into the third bend and sent the Dane spinning out.

Sullivan, who faces a big battle to retain the GP status he has held since 1998, suffered particularly cruel luck in heat eight that began his fall to elimination in Gothenburg.

The Pirate had just driven hard past Piotr Protasiewicz and Kaj Laukkanen coming off the second bend to move into second place.

Looking to follow race leader Gollob home to book a place in the main event, Sullivan's bike hit the same bump on the fourth bend that was later to cause Pedersen problems and fell heavily.

It meant the Aussie had to go into a heat 11 eliminator in which he made a good gate out of trap two.

But he was squeezed into third place, sandwich style, going into the first corner by Andersen and Peter Karlsson and slipped out of the meeting in disappointing fashion.

Lindback, off gate four, trailed in last in heat one behind a quality field of Tony Rickardsson, Sullivan and Rune Holta to go straight into an eliminator.

The Pirates' bike jumped at the start of heat six, betraying Lindback's nervousness, but the race was called back with all four riders for a re-start after it had been deemed an unsatisfactory start.

Nineteen-year-old Lindback then bowed to Bo Brhel's vast experience in the re-run to finish third.

Brhel, at 39 twice Lindback's age, saw the Swede dive under him into second place on the second turn of the third lap.

But the evergreen Czech Republican kept cool, drove past Lindback again on the back straight and then superbly pegged the wild card behind him.

It was a brief GP foray for the Poole teenager, but it gave him a taste of what is to come for him next year.