Rohan Tungate new FIM Oceania Solo Champion
Gillman Media 27 January 2025
The 2025 FIM Oceania Solo Championship was tipped to be a shoot-out between Rohan Tungate and Jaimon Lidsey and that’s exactly what happened with Tungate taking the trophy, and with it a place in the Speedway Grand Prix qualifying rounds, by just 0.194 seconds after a thrilling final.
Both riders finished equal top on the pointscores after the heats with 14 points apiece. Tungate dropped his only point to British rider Tom Brennan in heat 8, and Lidsey dropped his point to Tungate in heat 13. Despite beating Tungate, Brennan dropped points to James Pearson in the opening heat, and Lidsey in the final heat, to finish with 13 points.
The semi-final line-ups saw Tungate, Brennan, Justin Sedgmen (11 points) and Jack Morrison (8) in the first semi, and Lidsey, Fraser Bowes (11), James Pearson (11) and Dayle Wood (7) in the second.
The first semi was a close race between Brennan, Tungate and Morrison. Brennan led from the start but Morrison managed to get under Tungate in turn two and it was the end of the lap before Tungate could regain second place. He only needed to finish second to progress into the final but he was riding on the edge for the win and there were some hair-raising moments when he looked like he might overdo it. At the finish it was Brennan who took the win, with Tungate second, Morrison third and Sedgmen fourth.
The second semi was a bit more dramatic, and disappointing for the home track fans. From the start Lidsey led from Bowes with Pearson and Wood dicing for third and it looked like Lidsey and Bowes would be the two to go into the final, but then Wood fell in turn one on the second lap, and although he was quickly up he did not clear the track and the race was stopped. As so often happens, the rerun saw a different result. Bowes went wide in the first turn, hit the fence between turns one and two, and was thrown off balance. He did a remarkable job to stay upright but could not stop himself from running off the track, so Lidsey and Pearson were just left to finish the race unchallenged. Needless to say, Fraser wasn’t happy!
The final was somewhat similar with Lidsey being the victim of a rerun this time. The initial start saw Lidsey leading from Tungate, Brennan, Pearson into turn three, but Brennan fell and slid into the fence in turn four. He was unable to get up without assistance so the race had to be stopped. In the rerun Tungate led all the way, despite the efforts of Lidsey, who tried high and low lines, and went high through the last turn to get close, only beaten, as mentioned, by 0.194secs.
An overjoyed Tungate said at the presentation he was very happy to win, not just for the SGP qualifying place, but because he wanted to win the Oceania Championship to add to his Australian Championship wins, and he also acknowledged that he wasn’t sure if he would have caught Jaimon if the race wasn’t stopped.
Interestingly, even though he couldn’t get a SGP place, Brennan also said the Oceania is an event he wants to win, and Lidsey and Sedgmen always contest the event, so it is surprising a number of the other Australian international riders don’t seem that interested.
In the bottom half of the scorecard there was some close racing between Dayle Wood, Alex Adamson, Harry Sadler, Bradley Page, Reid Battye and Lachlan Russell, while Ashley Jansen-Batchelor and Senna Summers would have been in that mix but had nights to forget with Jansen-Batchelor having several falls, and Summers out after a heavy fall in only his second race on Aussie soil.
In the supporting Under 16 250cc Solo races, twelve-year-old 125cc Australian Champion Cooper Antone was given an exemption from Motorcycling Australia to compete (the minimum age is 13) and he took out the final from Dale Smith and Kobi Canning.
Antone, Smith and Jordy Loftus had top scored in the heats with 9 points each, but Loftus’ points came from only three rides as he suffered an engine failure while leading his fourth heat. He rode Lachlan Hawgood’s second bike in the final but that also broke down and he was out by turn one.
Full results are on the Results tab on the Gillman Speedway website.
