Friday, October 3: Young Estonian racer Stefan Arand of the Sharjah Team claimed a stunning maiden pole position for the UIM F1H2O Grand Prix of Shanghai, China after three thrilling qualifying sessions on the Huangpu River on Friday morning.

The Tallinn-based driver became embroiled in a gripping duel with three-time World Champion Shaun Torrente of the Victory Team for supremacy in Q3 and a last-gasp lap of 40.222sec was enough to earn pole after the two racers had traded blows throughout the 10-minute session.

Arand said: “It felt amazing. I haven’t felt this good going into a qualifying session before. When we got into Q3 and I started battling with Shaun, something inside of me said that I can take him and I ended up taking him. I am over the moon and so happy for the team. Thanks to Sharjah and Scott (Gillman) and everyone who has made this possible. I just felt so confident in the boat.”

Torrente added: “That was so much fun. Q1 was a mess with all those boats out there. I got caught in the middle and, Q2, I got there right at the end. We had a lot of problems yesterday and I told my crew it was better to have them yesterday.”

Team Abu Dhabi’s Erik Stark qualified in third, ahead of the impressive Grant Trask, who was running as the team-mate of defending champion Jonas Andersson for the first time as a member of Team Sweden. Engine issues meant that both Andersson and the championship-leading Rusty Wyatt both missed out on the Q3 session and were classified in fifth and sixth before the afternoon’s two 18-lap Sprint races.

Q1

Eight drivers would be eliminated in the opening 20-minute qualifying session on the 1.7km course near the Cruise Terminal in Baoshan on the outskirts of Shanghai. Comparato laid down the gauntlet with an opener of 44.296sec to top the early standings but that time was quickly surpassed by both Wyatt (43.012sec) and Stark (44.048sec).

Maskall started strongly on his debut with a lap of 44.407sec but Grant Trask ground to a halt on the far side of the course on his Team Sweden debut running alongside Andersson. The latter was late on to the water to try and avoid the dirty water and missed the opening six minutes of the session. That meant the water conditions were actually a little more difficult in a strengthening wind.

Engine gremlins had plagued the Victory Team during free practice on Thursday and both Alec Weckström and Shaun Torrente were struggling at the rear of the field and running the risk of missing out on Q2 after qualifying second and third in Indonesia back in August.

Wyatt’s time continued to stand as the benchmark, but the Victory Team duo moved into the safe domain of the top 10, as Duarte Benavente, the Maverick Racing duo of Cédric Deguisne and Alexandre Bourgeot, Team Abu Dhabi’s Mansoor Al-Mansoori, the China CTIC Team’s Peter Morin, Strømøy Racing’s Bartek Marszalek and Marit Strømøy and Alberto Comparato missed out on Q2. Trask, Jelf and Maskall escaped to make Q2 with Wyatt topping the times from Trask, Torrente, Arand and Jelf.

Comparato’s team-mate Damon Cohen safely made Q2. The Australian said: “We had a bit of trouble in practice yesterday. The conditions are really tricky. I am comfortable with the Baba hull. I don’t think I had my best lap in Q1. It was quite busy with 20 boats. Hopefully it will be better with 12 out there in Q2.”

Q2

A further six racers would be eliminated in the second 15-minute session. Wyatt was fast out of the blocks and the Canadian stormed to a lap of 42.196sec on his opener to move ahead of Trask and Seliö. Arand then moved into the safety of second place, as the heat intensified on the racers at the rear of the field. Andersson then stormed to the top of the standings with a run of 41.729sec.

A yellow-flag stopped proceedings with just over five minutes to run after Weckström flipped out of contention while holding fifth place. Stark moved into the top six after the restart and pushed Torrente into trouble but the session was yellow-flagged again with just over three minutes on the clock when series leader Wyatt stopped with technical issues on the far side of the race course.

The session swiftly resumed and Torrente managed to squeeze into the top six with a desperate run of 42.262sec to push his team-mate out of the final session. 

The Red Devil-SMC F1 Team’s Sami Seliö and Ferdinand Zandbergen, Cohen, the China CTIC Team’s rookie Kyle Maskall, the F1 Atlantic Team’s Ben Jelf and Weckström missed out on Q3 with Arand (41.707sec) topping the times from Andersson, Wyatt, the impressive Trask, Torrente and Stark. But Wyatt’s boat was towed back to the pontoon with engine issues and ran the serious risk of missing out on Q3.

Rookie Maskall said: “It was the first time ever in a Moore boat yesterday and it’s been a couple of years since I ran a big boat. Over in the US, we run smaller boats with less power. I was just trying to get used to it. Every lap was getting better. I really wanted to be in the top six but eighth place will do.”

Q3

Wyatt and his Sharjah Team technicians carried out some frantic work on the Mercury V6 power plant in the short gap between the two qualifying sessions. They changed the spark plugs and carried out a last-minute test. The engine fired up but the Canadian missed the start of Q3 with what he thought was an electrical issue.

Trask laid down the gauntlet with a 41.205sec flier but Andersson was also struggling on the pontoon with a technical problem. Arand passed the Australian with a run of 40.970sec and Torrente and Stark settled into third and fourth. The three-time World Champion then improved with a 41.063sec flier to snatch second behind Arand and then snatched provisional pole with the fastest lap of the weekend – a sensational run of 40.882sec.

As the clock ticked down, there was no time for Wyatt or Andersson to take to the water but Arand managed to regain pole with a stunning lap of 40.643sec. The topsy-turvy session took yet another stunning twist when Torrente regained pole with a 40.487sec run and then Arand responded sensationally with a 40.222sec in one of the most exciting finales to qualifying in years. That lap was sufficient for the young Estonian to grab pole from the American by 0.039 seconds, despite the Florida racer running a 40.261sec lap in the closing seconds.

Drivers will now prepare for their respective 18-lap Sprint races this afternoon.