ANYONE who doubted Hans Andersen’s desire to stay in the Grand Prix mix won’t question it now if they’d witnessed his tremendous race 14 victory at Terenzano.

The Pirates star, fighting hard to retain his GP status, jumped from 10th to eighth in the overall standings after reaching his third final in the last six rounds in the Italian GP.

Leading the final, the Dane lost out on first place and what would have been his fifth GP triumph in 63 rounds when Tomasz Gollob stormed inside him on the second lap to claim overall success.

But almost everyone was talking about Andersen’s extraordinary fourth-to-first burst in the earlier qualifying race which was one of the great GP rides of all-time.

Andersen was last out of the traps, but immediately cut back and sliced through Leigh Adams and Grzegorz Walasek off the second turn and down the back straight.

Then, after fighting hard to find a way past leader Sebastian Ulamek, he finally did, driving hard outside the Pole on the back straight of the last lap to record a superb win.

It was the race of the night, and would have been the highlight if Gollob hadn’t got the better of Andersen from behind in the final.

Looking back on his heroic heat 14 exploits, Poole Castle Cover’s star said: “I felt I had a lot more speed than Seb out front, but I didn’t want to dive bomb him.

“I didn’t want to risk hitting him or coming off myself. But I kept the speed on and he finally left a gap in the end and I got through.”

Andersen, who stylishly notched 18 points on Terenzano’s big 400-metre sandy track, added: “It would have been nice to win overall.

“But we took a gamble and changed our gearing for the last race and unfortunately it didn’t work out.”

The Dane, desperately battling to remain in a top eight automatic re-qualification place with one round to go at Bydgoszcz in Poland on October 17, continued: “I want to be in the GP next year.

“We just want to finish this season on a high and get ready for next season.”

Andersen, along with his Pirates team-mates, will be eagerly awaiting the result of Belle Vue’s home Elite League clash against Ipswich tonight (7.30pm).

Anything but a Witches win would send Poole to the bottom of the table and into a two-legged relegation-promotion play-off against the Premier League play-off winners.

Pirates have snapped up young Poles Artur Mroczka and Dawid Lampart as guests for challenges against Ipswich and Eastbourne next month.

Italian Grand Prix at Terenzano, |qualifiers: Tomasz Gollob (3-3-3-3-2) 14, Hans Andersen (3-1-3-3-2) 12, Emil Sayfutdinov (3-3-1-1-3) 11, Grzegorz Walasek (1-2-3-2-3) 11, Andreas Jonsson (2-2-1-3-3) 11, Chris Harris (3-2-2-2-1) 10, Rune Holta (0-3-2-2-1) 8, Nicki Pedersen (2-0-0-3-2) 7, Greg Hancock (1-1-3-0-2) 7, Scott Nicholls (1-0-1-1-3) 6, Fredrik Lindgren (2-0-2-2-0) 6, Kenneth Bjerre (ret-3-0-1-1) 5, Jason Crump (2-0-2-0-0) 4, Leigh Adams (0-2-1-0-0) 3, Sebastian Ulamek (1-1-0-1-0) 3, Guglielmo Franchetti (exc two mins-1-0-0-1) 2.

Semi-final One: Gollob, Walasek, Harris, Holta. Semi-final Two: Pedersen, Andersen, Jonsson, Sayfutdinov. Final: Gollob, Andersen, Pedersen, Walasek.

Overall GP standings: (after 10 rounds of 11) 1 Crump 150 pts, 2 Gollob 133, 3 Sayfutdinov 131, 4 Hancock 113, 5 Jonsson 104, 6 Pedersen 92, 7 Bjerre 90, 8 Andersen 88, 9 Lindgren 88, 10 Holta 85, 11 Adams 66, 12 Walasek 63, 13 Harris 59, 14 Ulamek 59, 15 Nicholls 41.