F1H2O racing resumes with European round in Sardinia next weekend

After a two-and-a-half-month break in the calendar since the inaugural Grand Prix of Bình Định-Vietnam on Thi Nai Bay, action resumes in the 2024 UIM F1H2O World Championship with the Regione Sardegna Grand Prix of Italy in Olbia next weekend.

The season has enjoyed a thrilling start with sensational races on Lake Toba in Indonesia and a superb debut event in Vietnam. Teams will now have to adjust to the challenges of racing on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia once again and, although they can expect warm ambient temperatures, it will be a far cry from the heat and humidity of Vietnam and the changeable and humid conditions they experienced in Sumatra. Sardinia will also see the racing timetable moved to the more traditional afternoon slots after the Southeast Asian races were held in the mornings to avoid potential adverse weather conditions and excessive heat. The Victory Team’s Erik Stark heads to the city of Olbia with an eight-point lead in the UIM F1H2O World Drivers’ Championship. He took full advantage of a hard-earned pole position to lead a yellow-flag interrupted Grand Prix of Bình Định-Vietnam from start-to-finish to seal his fifth ever race win.

The Swede finished the race just 2.715 seconds ahead of fellow countryman and defending World Champion Jonas Andersson after the pair had dominated the qualifying session and the two Sprint races, with Stark storming through to win Sprint race one from Canadian rookie Rusty Wyatt.

Andersson collected a 33rd career podium and a second-place finish enabled Team Vietnam to earn a 15-point cushion over the Sharjah Team in the UIM F1H2O Teams’ Championship with the Victory Team in third. Andersson also led the second of the Sprint races from start-to-finish to add 10 points to his tally. He is now tied on 47 points with Wyatt and is eight adrift of Stark after two rounds.

After stunning the racing establishment with a thrilling last-gasp victory on his F1H2O racing debut in Indonesia, Wyatt proved that his first ever win was no fluke with a solid follow-up performance in Vietnam. He finished second to Stark in the first of the Sprint races and was able to shadow the CTIC China Team’s Peter Morin to the chequered flag to pick up points for fourth place in Quy Nhơn.

A spectacular coming together between the Sharjah Team’s Filip Roms and the China CTIC Team’s Brent Dillard forced a yellow flag midway through the race in Vietnam and that stoppage enabled Morin to overtake Wyatt and snatch third and the final place on the podium - his cause helped when Wyatt suffered communication issues with his radioman at the crucial restart.

Morin heads to Sardinia lying fifth in the Drivers’ Championship behind Strømøy Racing’s Bartek Marszalek. After finishing fifth on Lake Toba, the Pole was running strongly in the second Sprint race in Vietnam before suffering a jammed throttle in the final minutes of the race. That pushed him down to fifth but last year’s Grand Prix of Indonesia winner put that setback behind him to card a fifth-place finish in the Grand Prix on Thi Nai Bay.

Andersson’s Team Vietnam sidekick Stefan Arand proved in Indonesia that his inclusion in the team was a master stroke by Andersson. The young Estonian finished just off the podium in Sumatra and picked up nine points for shadowing his team-mate to the finish of the second Sprint race in Vietnam. Unfortunately, his goal of impressing the local crowd ended on lap seven of the Grand Prix when he ground to a halt with a broken propeller. As a result, Arand slipped to sixth in the Drivers’ Championship.

Double World Champion Sami Seliö is two points behind the Estonian in seventh in the points’ standings after finishing sixth and seventh in the opening two Grand Prix and picking up 14 points from the two Sprint races. The Red Devil-SMC F1 Team driver’s team-mate Ferdinand Zandbergen has endured a fraught start to his 2024 racing campaign: the Dutchman languishes in 12th in the Drivers’ Championship after failing to finish on Lake Toba and then being disqualified from 10th place in the Grand Prix of Bình Định-Vietnam for taking the wrong direction on the race course.