Zach Wajtknecht
Zach Wajtknecht is a motorcycle speedway rider from Great Britain. In 2025 he became the 2025 FIM [Long Track World Championship|World longtrack champion].
Career
At an early age Wajtknecht became a double World Champion, twice triumphing in the FIM 125cc Grasstrack Youth Gold Trophy. He followed up these successes by being crowned British 250cc Youth Champion in 2013 and winner of the FIM 250cc Longtrack Youth World Cup in 2014. These successes led to Zach being awarded the prestigious Pinhard trophy, a trophy he described himself as being "over the moon" to win.Wajtknecht was handed his big break in speedway by the newly reformed National League Birmingham Brummies ahead of the 2015 season, the team's first season in the third tier of British Speedway. The team was put together by former manager Phil Morris, the newly appointed FIM Race Director for the Speedway Grand Prix series. Morris described Wajtknecht as having "what it takes to enjoy a very successful speedway career" He was part of the Birmingham team that won the league title during the National League speedway season">National League (Speedway)">National League speedway season and the National League Fours, held on 14 June 2015 at Brandon Stadium.
In 2017, he won the British Under-19 Championship at Plymouth and rode for Swindon. His 2017 season was cut short in July when a crash at Swindon resulted in a ruptured spleen and punctured lung.
In 2019, he was the European Grasstrack champion. This was the same season that he decided to concentrate longtrack and grasstrack and stop riding conventional speedway.
In 2022, he finished second for the World Longtrack title, finishing 28 points behind Mathieu Trésarrieu in the 2022 Individual Long Track World Championship. In 2023, he was part of the British longtrack team, along with Chris Harris and Andrew Appleton, that won the bronze medal at the 2023 Team Long Track World Championship. At the 2024 FIM Long Track World Championship Wajtknecht secured the bronze medal after the five rounds.
In 2025, he was a member of the Great Britain team that won the longtrack world championships and shortly afterwards won the 2025 world individual longtrack championship.<
Major results
World Longtrack Championship Grand-Prix
- 2019 - 2 apps 25pts
- 2020 - 2 apps 32pts
- 2021 - 2 apps 8pts
- 2022 - 6 apps 88pts
- 2023 - 6 apps 77pts
- 2024 - 5 apps 86pts
- 2025 - 4 apps pts