PRW spoke to Alexander Lindholm about his announcement that he will be racing in the UIM F2 World Championship next season.

Lindholm from Turku in Finland won the 2020 UIM F4 World Championship and now thinks the time is right the make the step-up:

Since the end of the season 2021 we started thinking about our future in powerboat racing, We felt that we have achieved all our goals in UIM F4 and didn’t have the motivation to continue.

 

Racing in F4 has thought us so much and we are very pleased with our time in the class and showing that with the right tools it´s possible to do almost everything by yourself.

Photo: Saku Sydänmaanlakka

His Liwe Racing team built their own hulls for the F4 series:

It took us three boat builds and a few different CFD programs to finally build one that was competitive and able to fight at the top.

They even branched out with designing and making their own propellers:

It was quite demanding!

 

Just to find a foundry that was able to make them was hard and then to find the right specification of steel so that they were strong and stiff enough.

 

In the end everything worked out well.

The move to the more powerful class has been on the cards for nearly a year:

In the autumn of 2021 we took the decision to start pushing towards UIM F2.

 

Right from the get go we knew that it would be too hard to immediately start building our own boat, so we started looking around for a good used boat.

 

The hardest part was funding.

 

During times like these it isn’t easy to find the backing needed for F2, or any class.

 

We worked hard but did not seem to get enough economic support.

Lindholm continued:

By the spring in 2022 we decided to take a year off from racing and continue the hunt for sponsors for the 2023 season.

 

Things started to happen and we managed to sell some of our F4 equipment and one thing led to another.

 

Earlier this month we bought a Mollgaard hull and finally it was clear, we were actually taking the step up to the F2-class!

 

We needed to start with a proven boat so that the driver knows that everything works.

Will the Liwe Racing team compete in all of the World Championship next year?

It´s clear that F2 is the class we will be racing in but it´s still uncertain how many races we will do.

 

Probably we will do an ‘easy’ start and just take part in a few to get the experience needed for a highly competitive class with many great drivers and teams.

And for the future?

In a few years it´s hard to say where we will be and what we will do but knowing our history we might start building our own boat and making our own propellers in F2 as well.

 

Development is the most interesting part of powerboat racing for us!

 

One thing is for sure, doing everything ourselves we were able to make it to the top in F4 and to do the same thing in F2 is the goal.

 

I can´t wait to get back in a powerboat and back on the race course!