Thursday, 28 June, EVIAN (France): In Evian last year Francesco Cantando launched his new Blaze Performance hull and picked up a point. Twelve months later the Italian returns with the ‘same’ but much improved Blaze and is enjoying an upward curve in performance following two strong races this year.

Whilst points and race finishes were limited in 2017, Cantando was always looking more at time differentials in qualifying; Q1 was his early benchmark, the time lag to target time wavered between 2.50 and 6 seconds and Q2 looked a distant prospect. However, 2018 is a different story with Q2 now the expected norm, 1.53s off the top spot in Portugal and then missing out on a top six slot in London by just .04s and only 0.46s off top spot.

In the race in London Cantando delivered his best overall weekend for a long time, his run in fourth place coming to a frustrating yet still positive end on lap 31 of 54. “It was a good weekend on the water in London. The winter time and the effort everyone put in helped us a lot and you can see the difference in the last two races,” he said. “OK we broke a connecting rod but that is racing but we were very competitive and challenging for a podium place. Now we have to look to make another step up and move forward here.”