The driver from Florida went into the race third on the grid and three points ahead of the nearest title contender, Jonas Andersson.
Andersson made no mistake after the start; he passed Chiappe on the 537 meters to the first turn mark and then started to extend his lead.
Torrente dropped from third to fourth after lights out allowing Bartek Marszalek to get by.
The race went under yellow after six laps when Filip Roms broke down on the racing line.
At the re-start on lap 8 Andersson had a perfect getaway and left Chiappe in his wake. Behind him, Marszalek took out the championship contender Torrente, if that wasn’t bad enough for the Abu Dhabi driver, his teammate Thani Al Qemzi came through the spray and t-boned him.
After another yellow, Andersson held the lead under green and had to hold position over the next 24 laps to win the championship – A technical failure would give Torrente the gold medal. On lap 16 it was yellow flag number 3 when Ferdinand Zandbergen double barrel rolled while sitting in fourth place.
The British Osprey rescue team quickly picked up the Dutch driver and his BaBa hull was towed back to the pits allowing for the green flag on lap 20.
Andersson was perfect again and kept Chiappe in his last F1H2o race behind him.
Heart break for Andersson!
On lap 28 Andersson’s motor let go and he was out of the race and his world championship dreams were in tatters.
Chiappe kept going for the last ten laps and went into retirement with a race win while Torrente watched from the dock knowing that he had won enough points in the season to give him the title!
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