The team experienced the ultimate highs and lows of international powerboat racing at the second and third rounds of the UIM F1H2O World Championship, with Ferdinand Zandbergen claiming a first career pole and race win and two-time World Champion Sami Selio setting superb lap times only to be denied success by two accidents, the second of which cost him any chance of taking part in the second race.

A focused Selio said:

“Even now I still have mixed emotions about the race weekend, especially after seeing the work involved to a fix a crazy amount of damage that could have easily been avoided. It was absolutely great for Zandbergen because that result now shows that the Sharjah Team have two strong drivers capable of getting the job done. For me though, to have a podium place snatched away is still hard to understand.”

The flying Finn now has a target of achieving a podium finish in Sardinia this weekend. Way back in 2004, when Scott Gillman won the last race on the island, a young Selio finished second overall at the Grand Prix of Europe in Cagliari.

“To stand next to Scott Gillman was almost like an honour, as he had secured a podium place every year that we race there,” added Selio, who now has a point to prove this weekend. “It’s not easy to get good results as every lap in your entire racing career will be different. That’s what keeps it interesting and that’s all the motivation that is needed.”

Tomorrow (Friday), drivers will be permitted to take part in an extra free practice session on the 1620-metre, eight-pin course adjacent to the Molo Brin pier in Olbia.

Lavinia Cavallero Sr. Vice President of H2O Racing and for many years the main driving force behind the series said

We are incredibly happy to close our racing season in Sharjah. It’s a location that has always welcomed us with great enthusiasm and affection and which is now in the hearts of all the organisers, staff, and race teams. I would like to deeply thank our historical partner, Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development, who have always believed in us.

For over twenty years now the Khalid Lagoon has often hosted the final round of the F1H2O World Championship and has seen some incredible title battles take place there along with several memorable events including Guido Cappellini’s fiftieth career victory in 2005 and then the following year his title chances ending with an electrical failure thus handing the championship to his rival Scott Gillman.

The Khalid Lagoon was the venue where the Sharjah Team driver Sami Selio won his first F1H2O World Championship back in 2007 and then again in 2010 and when he spoke to PRW he was pleased to be heading back there.

It’s great that we are ending the year at what is our home Grand Prix for me and the team it will bring positive pressure. The last time we raced there was back in 2019 and that was the first year that the Sharjah Team existed, so up until this December the only chance that the fans have had to see us race was via the web and on TV. The locals now know us and that will create a huge buzz for all of us.

Selio has been keeping himself busy with the Sharjah F2 Team and was pleased with his recent result at the UIM F2 Grand Prix of Poland.

For me to finish in fifth place was probably as good as I could have hoped for because those in front all had either brand new boats or the very latest version, whereas I was in the boat that we had set up for Ferdinand Zandbergen. It’s tough to adapt my style of racing from F1 to F2 but any time on the water is time well spent.

The F1H2O Grand Prix of Sharjah will take place in Khalid Lagoon from 16 to 18 December.

It certainly was a day of mixed fortunes for the Sharjah Team with both Seliö and Ferdinand Zandbergen making it into the final qualifying session Q3. The only other team to get both drivers into Q3 were their championship rivals Team Abu Dhabi. They were joined by only one of the four French drivers entered for their home Grand Prix and that was Peter Morin from the China CTIC Team along with the Finnish driver Alec Weckstrom from Gillman Racing.

This season they have changed the format in Q3, where the top six boats from Q2 instead of running two laps one by one in reverse order dictated by the times set in Q2 now run all together for ten minutes. The reigning World Champion Jonas Andersson just missed out on a place the top six by 0.07 seconds and he will start tomorrow in seventh position ahead of Marit Stromoy and Philippe Chiappe, who has announced that this season will be his last one in F1H2O.

As the final ten minutes of qualifying got underway Zandbergen headed out onto the course to set a time but as he was entering the circuit, he got caught out by the wash created ironically by Seliö and barrel rolled his BaBa hull. It certainly was a disappointing end to what had been a fabulous qualifying session for the young Dutch driver.

When Seliö spoke to PRW he said,

I know he has the pace. It was just a frustrating ‘rookie’ mistake to make especially when there were only five other boats on the circuit at the time. The important thing is that he’s fine and there was no damage to his BaBa hull. The mechanics will change over the electrics and check over the engine because it would be an absolute shame if we needed to change it over as he would then drop to the back of the grid which would totally compromise his race.

With Zandbergen safely ashore Seliö went out and posted a time of 32.20 around the tight 1500 metre Macon circuit. Just like in the previous two qualifying sessions this became the time for everyone else to beat. With five minutes remaining Team Abu Dhabi’s Shaun Torrente set the second fastest time, then lap after lap he tried in vain to snatch pole position off Seliö. As the time was ebbing away Torrente was getting closer and closer eventually coming within 0.11 seconds of pole before Seliö went out and bettered his own time posting a 32.02.

Setting his twenty-sixth F1 career pole position Seliö had remained on the outside of the circuit just in case his time was bettered. He told PRW,

I was just waiting to see if they could catch me. Honestly, I am so relieved because it has been a long while since I was last on pole as there was always some minor problem that would get in the way. I feel confident enough now to really race the boat hard with no nagging feeling in the back of my mind feeling that something is about to fail. It’s great to get pole position in my pocket, now I must make the most of it around this challenging course come Sunday afternoon.

Both Torrente and Al Qemzi will have Seliö in their sights as they start from second and third positions. Going into this weekend’s opening round they were strongly fancied to deliver a fifth consecutive world team title to the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi.

Torrente had started the weekend in confident style, setting the fastest time in the previous day’s opening practice session as he put behind him last year’s disappointing third-place finish.

Al Qemzi has even more reason not to look back, after seeing his bid for a first world title fall short by a solitary point just over six months ago. He is using every bit of his twenty-two-years of F1H2O experience to make his mark in France.

Torrente said,

The way the championship ended last season was rough, so while it was definitely not the way I wanted it to end, at the same time, I was super proud of the team. Sometimes, when things don’t go right, you really find out what your team is all about. It was just a matter of ‘Let’s get this done’, and we came really close. It’s the first year that I’ve raced for Abu Dhabi that I wasn’t the World Champion, so let’s correct that and make it the only year.

The drivers will be back out mid Sunday morning for the one-hour F1 warm up session starting at 11:15. That will be followed later in the afternoon with the parade lap at 15:45 before the start of the UIM F1H2O Grand Prix of France at 16:05.

We have over a year of dyno and boat testing of right- and left-hand versions. We will soon be manufacturing world class pistons for F1, Drag, USA F1, Endurance racing and OEM replacements in standard and oversized versions.

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When asked about Steve Bethel, the founder of Leadfoot Engineering, who has over 25 years of power cylinder design, development and manufacturing experience Dave Bush said

We at DBR, are extremely excited with both performance and reliability improvements of this new piston. Bethel is by far one of the world’s best piston designers.

He has been designing and building pistons for the best of the best for decades. It is an honour to be working with him and his team at this level. In fifty years of professional motorsports, I have never met a smarter Engineer.

Dave Bush has been part of Sami Selio’s F1H2O Sharjah Team since 2019, so when PRW spoke to Selio we asked him about Bush and whether the team was involved with the new piston.

I am aware of this new development and yes of course we have been involved with this project. We think it’s great that someone is committed to keeping the 2-stroke alive, but as to whether they are in my engines I couldn’t possibly comment.

Selio and his team are due to race in Macon, France next weekend at the opening round this year’s UIM F1 World Championship.