Saturday, March 30: The China CTIC Team’s Peter Morin was quickest in the second of the one-hour free practice sessions on Saturday morning in final preparations for the pair of Sprint races that will take centre stage at the Grand Prix of Bình Định-Vietnam in Quy Nhơn later today.
The French driver ran for just 11 laps and finished the stint 0.148 seconds ahead of Team Vietnam’s defending World Champion Jonas Andersson with the Sharjah Team’s Rusty Wyatt in third.
Both Ben Jelf and Brent Dillard changed their engines after the qualifying sessions with technical issues affecting both drivers in the all-important sessions on Saturday. All things remaining equal, they will start Sunday’s Grand Prix at the rear of the field and just ahead of Team Abu Dhabi’s Rashed Al-Qemzi.
Al-Qemzi’s team-mate Thani Al-Qamzi and Marit Strømøy were first on to the water in practice and the Emirati carded the early target lap of 45.635sec. The China CTIC Team’s Peter Morin then broke the sub-45-second barrier with a 44.251-second lap in a session where 17 boats had taken to the water after 18 minutes – with the exception of Rashed Al-Qemzi.
Andersson had been concerned about his engine during the final qualifying session on Friday afternoon and the Swede moved into second behind Morin with a lap of 44.903sec. Sami Seliö was also running strongly and moved ahead of Rusty Wyatt with a lap of 45.202sec. Al-Qemzi then got his first taste of racing on Thi Nai Bay and the Emirati carded a best run of 47.842sec during his first six laps of the course.
Al-Qemzi improved and climbed to ninth with a lap of 46.025sec as the session headed into the closing minutes with Morin leading from Andersson, Seliö, Wyatt and Al-Qamzi. Wyatt then ran a 44.963sec lap and climbed to third in clearer water with only three boats on the water. But there was no sign of pole-sitter Stark, who had shaken down his boat with seven early laps and returned to the pontoon to sit out the remainder of the session.
Rashed Al-Qemzi was quickly getting to grips with the DAC after replacing Alberto Comparato in the second of the Team Abu Dhabi boats and he moved up to fifth with a run of 45.616 seconds. Marit Strømøy left it until the last couple of minutes to put the four-stroke DAC into sixth behind Al-Qemzi, the Emirati also returning to the water in the last minute to card a best lap of 45.008sec that put him in front of Seliö and into fourth behind Morin, Andersson and Wyatt.
