Monday, December 2: It’s now less than a week before the outcome of another thrilling UIM F1H2O World Championship is decided on Sharjah’s Khaled Lagoon with the Road to Sharjah-Grand Prix of Sharjah taking place on Sunday (December 8th).
Team Vietnam’s Jonas Andersson and Sharjah Team rival and rookie Rusty Wyatt have put some daylight between themselves and their nearest rivals in advance of a potential Sharjah showdown. The pair are separated by just three points in the Drivers’ Championship with Team Vietnam heading the Sharjah Team by 10.5 points in the battle to win the Teams’ Championship.
With the successful introduction of a pair of Sprint races at the start of this season, the modified points’ system means that the China CTIC Team’s Peter Morin and the Victory Team’s Erik Stark could still pull off a shock and claim their first world titles. Morin trails Andersson by 19.5 points with a potential 30 still at stake for victory in the Grand Prix and his Sprint race, while Stark is two points further behind.
Andersson dominated last season but competition has been far more intense this year: it looked as though newcomer Wyatt was going to run away with the championship before the last round on the Yellow River in Zhengzhou after his victories in Indonesia and Sardinia. Crucially, Andersson stormed to a start-to-finish win in Zhengzhou to snatch the World Championship lead and he also leads the F1H2O Pole Position Trophy by six points.
Wyatt won the weather-shortened Grand Prix of Shanghai-China on the Huangpu River but the Canadian only earned half points for the 11-lap race. He braved the appalling weather conditions better than any of his rivals with choppy waters making the actual race more of a survival exercise.
His Finnish team-mate Filip Roms is 12th in the rankings, a topsy-turvy year not helped by DNFs in Indonesia and Vietnam and just three points from the other three Grand Prix. The Sharjah Team will also debut a new boat designed in-house by Sharjah Marine this weekend.
Andersson’s Team Vietnam colleague Stefan Arand was unable to start the last race in Zhengzhou after a spectacular pre-race accident and the team announced in mid-November that the Estonian is still recovering from a neck muscle injury. His place alongside Andersson in Sharjah will be taken by Finn Kalle Viippo, whom he replaced at the start of the season. Arand will not be able, therefore, to improve on his current eighth position in the Drivers’ Championship.
The Sharjah race will also be the last in Victory Team colours for Stark, before he returns to Team Abu Dhabi at the start of 2025. After the second round of the World Championship – where the Swede had taken second place on Lake Toba and stormed to the win in Vietnam – it looked as though Stark would be the man to beat this year. That was before he retired in Sardinia, finished second in Shanghai and then retired in Zhengzhou.
The two October races in China were happy hunting grounds for Morin. He picked up points for sixth in Shanghai and was the runner-up to Andersson in Zhengzhou. Those two results have lifted Morin into distant title contention.
Strømøy Racing’s Bartek Marszalek and Marit Strømøy hold fifth and seventh in the Drivers’ Championship and third in the Teams’ Championship. The Shanghai weekend was a miserable one for Strømøy before she bounced back with sixth place in Zhengzhou. Marszalek also retired in Shanghai but finished a fine fourth in Zhengzhou and could still finish third in the Drivers’ Championship.
The Red Devil SMC F1 Team’s two-time World Champion Sami Seliö has found some better luck and form as the season has progressed and the flying Finn is sandwiched between the two Strømøy Racing boats in sixth place. Seliö finished a strong third in Zhengzhou and will be hoping to carry that form into the final race in the UAE.
His team-mate Ferdinand Zandbergen delivered his best result of the year with fourth in Shanghai and the Dutchman continued his improvement by storming through the field to finish fifth in Zhengzhou. He is equal ninth in the standings with the F1 Atlantic Team’s ever-improving Ben Jelf.
Jelf is accustomed to choppy conditions in his native Great Britain and scored valuable points for eighth and seventh at the last two races in China to draw level with Zandbergen. The Briton’s Portuguese team-mate Duarte Benavente picked up his first Grand Prix points of the season for finishing eighth in Zhengzhou.
Team Abu Dhabi would like nothing more than to finish what has been a miserable year on a high with victory in Sharjah. With Stark set to join veteran Thani Al-Qamzi in the team next year, the final round of the season gives five-time Formula Two World Champion Rashed Al-Qemzi a great opportunity to finish his short F1H2O campaign on a high. Boat damage meant that Al-Qemzi was not able to start the last round on the Yellow River and a non-finish for Al-Qamzi sees the Abu Dhabi racers down in 11th and 19th positions in the Drivers’ Championship.
Morin’s American team-mate Brent Dillard is 13th after finishing seventh in Shanghai but retiring in Zhengzhou. The American’s Sprint race performances have outweighed his actual Grand Prix success this season, although a good result on Khalid Lagoon could propel the South Carolina-based driver into the overall top 10.
Maverick Racing’s duo of Cédric Deguisne and Alexandre Bourgeot are 14th and 16th in the Drivers’ Championship. The French duo both showed a good turn of speed in appalling conditions in Shanghai, despite an engine change for Deguisne after qualifying. That improvement was evident when Bourgeot scored points for eighth in Zhengzhou and Degusine also reached the chequered flag in 11th.
The Victory Team’s Ahmad Al-Fahim missed the opening round in Indonesia through suspension and failed to finish in Vietnam. He finished seventh in Sardinia, was out of the points in Shanghai and then collided with team-mate Erik Stark at the last race in Zhengzhou. A dramatic season sees the Emirati down in 15th in the rankings.
After a press conference at the Sharjah Academy for Astronomy, Space Sciences and Technology at noon on Thursday (December 5th), technical scrutineering and the first two-hour free practice session will take place on Friday.
Qualifying takes centre stage from 09.30hrs (GMT +4) on Saturday morning and precedes the two Sprint races, starting at 15.10hrs and 15.40hrs, respectively.
Teams will be permitted a final warm-up session on Sunday morning before the Road to Sharjah-Grand Prix of Sharjah fires into life at 15.00hrs (GMT +4).
