Dubai: Philippe Chiappe had a dream start to the defence of his world crown when he completed a hat-trick of wins at the Grand Prix of Portugal — the opening round of the 2017 UIM F1H2O World Championships, on Sunday.
After two days of foul weather had denied all teams the customary testing, the weather was back to normal in the Algarve region of Portugal with organisers going through the 90-minute BRM Qualifying and the actual race on either side of lunch time on Sunday.
It was the re-branded Victory Team driver Shaun Torrente laying the gauntlet for the defending world champion in Sunday morning’s qualifying session as he took the Pole Position with a tremendous lap time of 42.8 seconds. Victory Team’s Ahmad Al Hameli clocked the second best time, while Team Sweden’s Erik Stark followed in third leaving Chiappe in a not so favourable fourth.
However, once Al Hameli had eased into second place in a time of 43.13 seconds, his boat crashed out spectacularly leaving the UAE driver no further role in the race. The incident occurred when Al Hameli was pushing Torrente all the way till he made a mistake coming down the finishing straight and let his boat run out wide to be caught out by the wind, clipping a pontoon and launching the boat end-over-end.
Starting from Pole, Torrente was in no mood to relent as he took the early lead even as Team Sweden’s Erik Stark and CTIC F1 Shenzhen China’s defending champion Chiappe battled for second place. With all drivers pushing for the top, pressure began to play a crucial role and the first to succumb was Jonas Andersson from Team Sweden as he limped out. And by the eighth lap, it was Torrente’s turn to follow him out leaving Chiappe a clear view before him to power to his third straight win on the Arade River in Portimao.
Stark chased down the experienced Frenchman and came within 1.83 seconds of overtaking him. But as he took the second turn on the 50th and final lap his boat just stopped giving Chiappe the easiest of wins, a good 13.48 seconds clear of former world champion, Sami Selio from the Mad-Croc Baba Racing team.
“It’s a wonderful start to our season and this win gives us all the right signals for a fourth world title,” Chiappe told Gulf News from Portimao.
“We were unsure of the boat at the start, but now we know what we ought to do to get the tuning right so that we can continue all the hard work that has been put in by the entire team over the past few years. We will now head for a few more testing sessions in France and see how best we can go forward before the next race in Evian,” the Frenchman added.
Local racing fans had a lot to cheer after Duarte Benavente of the F1 Atlantic Team took third place and his place on the podium, while Blaze Performance’s Bartek Marszalek came in fourth and Team Abu Dhabi picked up crucial early points after Alex Carella ended in fifth.
RESULTS
Top-10 positions at the end of the Grand Prix of Portugal — the opening round of the 2017 UIM F1 H2O World Championships held in Portimao, Portugal, on Sunday: 1. Philippe Chiappe (CTIC F1 Shenzhen China); 2. Sami Selio (Mad-Croc Baba Racing); 3. Duarte Benavente (F1 Atlantic Team); 4. Bartek Marszalek (Blaze Performance); 5. Alex Carella (Team Abu Dhabi); 6. Mike Szymura (Emirates Racing Team); 7. Cedric Deguisne (Maverick F1); 8. Trask Grant (F1 Atlantic Team); 9. Peter Morin (CTIC F1 Shenzhen China); 10. Filip Roms (Mad-Croc Baba Racing).
Teams standings after Race One of the 2017 UIM F1 H2O World Championships held in Portimao, Portugal, on Sunday: 1. CTIC F1 Shenzhen China (22pts); 2. F1 Atlantic Team (16); 3. Mad-Croc Baba Racing (16); 4. Team Abu Dhabi (9); 5. Blaze Performance (7).
