JASON DOYLE is still walking on crutches after a recent race fall but the Swindon skipper showed his raw courage to go top of the world championship standings with a runner-up spot at the British Grand Prix in Cardiff on Saturday night.

After two rides Doyle's chances of reaching the knock out stages seemed to have disappeared.

He briefly led in his first race but was quickly overtaken by Niels-Kristian Iversen and Matej Zagar.

Doyle's next race was even worse as, holding second place, he picked up too much grip on lap three, just touched eventual race winner Bartosz Zmarzlik and fell.

Surely the Aussie was going to be eliminated with just one point from two rides For once Doyle had luck on his side as in his third race, while he was in third place, Freddie Lindgren pulled out allowing Doyle to take a fortuitous two points.

Doyle remains the ultimate battler and in successive races he took a comfortable win in heat 16 before securing his semi-final place by heading home main rival Patryk Dudek, Tai Woffinden and a disappointing Craig Cook.

With five riders on nine points and only four to go through it was Woffinden who missed out on countback.

Doyle drew gate three in the semi-final and had to face Dudek again but it the very impressive former Swindon ace Maciej Janowski who took the victory while Doyle edged out Dudek to take the lead in the series and eliminate the young Pole.

The final saw Doyle make a flier although all four riders were brought back. In the rerun Janowski flew the gate while Doyle briefly came under pressure from Zmarzlik but he gradually pulled away and it was left to another ex-Swindon rider Matej Zagar to take third place.

Doyle now leads the series at the halfway stage but the biggest winner on the night was Janowski whose 17 points put him in joint-second, three points behind and sharing second spot with Dudek.

Spare a thought for Greg Hancock as the world champion fell at home in the week dislocating a shoulder which was further aggravated at practise.

Clearly the pain was too much as he pulled out early in first race.

Hancock’s misfortune did at least give Swindon's Adam Ellis valuable experience at this level and while he did not score as reserve he will have learnt a lot.

Doyle said: “After the first two rides I barely had any points and had to do it the hard way.

"Again, I sneaked into the semi-final and fair play to Maciej (Janowski) and Matej (Zagar) they were so good and had all the lines sorted out.

"The track got a little bit rough so there was plenty of carnage happening. We all tried to stay safe.

"We have a long way to go. It doesn’t matter where you stand at the moment, you just need to bang in the points until the end and then see where you stand.”

The series moves to Malilla, Sweden in two weeks' time and the Swindon captain must be hoping for a repeat of the 17 points he claimed there in 2016.

BRITISH GP SCORERS: Maciej Janowski 17 (1st), Jason Doyle 13 (2nd), Matej Zagar 12 (3rd), Bartosz Zmarzlik 16 (4th), Emil Sayfutdinov 11, Patryk Dudek 10, Peter Kildemand 10, Chris Holder 10, Tai Woffinden 9, Niels-Kristian Iversen 7, Fredrik Lindgren 7, Antonio Lindback 7, Martin Vaculik 4, Josh Bates (res) 2, Craig Cook 2, Piotr Pawlicki 1, Greg Hancock 0, Adam Ellis (res) 0.

WORLD STANDINGS (after Round 6 of 12); Jason Doyle 78, Maciej Janowski 75, Patryk Dudek 75, Fredrik Lindgren 58, Emil Sayfutdinov 58, Tai Woffinden 57, Bartosz Zmarzlik 55, Martin Vaculik 49, Matej Zagar 48, Greg Hancock 45, Chris Holder 44, Piotr Pawlicki 44, Niels-Kristian Iversen 38, Antonio Lindback 36, Peter Kildemand 22.