Craig Cook is on the verge of becoming a Grand Prix speedway star.

While Workington Comets struggled again without their talisman on Saturday night, Cook started slowly but finished fourth in the GP Challenge meeting at Togliatti, Russia.

He finished behind Artem Laguta, Przemyslaw Pawlicki and Patryk Dudek, who took the three automatic qualification places for next year's series.

But the result means the Cleator racer is now reliant on Dudek to finish in the top eight of this year's Grand Prix standings, which would hand Cook a place in next year's series. Dudek is currently third with five rounds to go and is expected to achieve that.

Tony Jackson, Cook's team manager at Workington, said the result was fantastic for his No1.

"As long as he doesn't get injured Dudek should finish top eight," he said.

"It's a fantastic achievement from Craig to recover from last place in his first ride and to do what he has under the circumstances is a great credit to him.

"It was a very good effort in quite a hostile environment and he beat Dudek and Peter Kildemand."

While Cook flourished against a host of international stars, his Comets team-mates suffered a 51-39 drubbing at home to Ipswich which left their play-offs hopes looking slim at best.

"That's effectively ended any hopes of reaching the play-offs," Jackson said.

"It was a bit embarrassing but Ipswich are a good team

"It's not so much that we lost, it's the way we lost.

"Some people have lost a bit of form and we've got too much of a long tail.

"The bottom end of the team had too many last places and maybe some riders are lucky that we are past the transfer deadline.

"We closed in after 10 races but heat 13 was the killer, then they got a totally unexpected 5-1 in heat 14 which was hard to take.

"It's disappointing but we've just got to move on."