Thursday, September 5: While the main attention focuses on the battle for the Drivers’ Championship in the 2024 UIM F1H2O World Championship, three drivers are locked in a fascinating tussle to decide the outcome of this year’s F1H2O Pole Position Trophy.
In 2023, Jonas Andersson enjoyed a memorable season with Team Sweden and claimed a clean sweep of all the honours. The Swede’s team has been renamed Team Vietnam this year and he continues to be competitive but his rivals are closing in.
He currently trails Canadian rookie Rusty Wyatt of the Sharjah Team by 14 points in the Drivers’ Championship but he has a slender advantage in the contest to see if he can become the fastest and most consistent qualifier for the fourth time in five seasons after successes in 2019, 2021 and 2023.
Andersson has a two-point cushion over the Victory Team’s Erik Stark (winner in 2018) heading into the forthcoming Grand Prix of Shanghai China and the season’s finale in Sharjah in early December. Wyatt is a single point further adrift and 20 points clear of Andersson’s Estonian team-mate Stefan Arand.
Andersson claimed pole position ahead of Stark and Wyatt for the opening Pertamina Grand Prix of Indonesia on Lake Toba at the start of March but arch rival and close friend Stark redressed the balance to earn pole from Andersson, Arand and Wyatt at the inaugural Grand Prix of Bình Định-Vietnam in Quy Nhơn on Thi Nai Bay in late March.
Stark was not able to repeat that impressive turn of speed at round three in Sardinia, however, and rookie sensation Wyatt claimed his first career pole position after dominating the tricky qualifying session for the Regione Sardegna Grand Prix of Italy in Olbia. Andersson and Stark qualified in fourth and fifth behind Team Abu Dhabi’s Thani Al-Qamzi and Peter Morin of the China CTIC Team.
The heat is on as teams and drivers turn their attention to round four on the Huangpu River in Baoshan District, Shanghai on October 4th-6th.
