Thursday, October 2: The Sharjah Team’s championship leader Rusty Wyatt wrapped up the third of the free practice sessions at the UIM F1H2O Grand Prix of Shanghai, China with a quickest lap of 42.736sec on Thursday afternoon.

Team Abu Dhabi’s Mansoor Al-Mansoori was the first racer on to the water at the start of the third practice session but series leader Wyatt posted the early target time of 44.706sec on his opening lap. The Ontario-based driver bettered that soon after with a run of 43.598sec and settled at the top of the standings ahead of the Red Devil-SMC F1 Team’s Sami Seliö, Marit Strømøy and Alec Weckström through the first three minutes.

Wyatt’s fast lap stood into the second third of the stint with 16 drivers already posting times and Team Abu Dhabi’s Erik Stark moving up the rankings with a quick lap of 43.973sec. Wyatt was on a mission to find his best qualifying set-up and the Sharjah Team driver improved still further heading through the halfway point with a run of 42.736sec.

That lap remained the one to beat into the final 10 minutes of practice with 17 racers posting times with the exception of session two pace-setter Jonas Andersson, Peter Morin and Damon Cohen. The F1 Atlantic Team’s Ben Jelf couldn’t quite find the impressive speed he had shown on Lake Toba. His best run was 44.208sec after 29 laps of the challenging Huangpu River course.

Both Weckström and team-mate Shaun Torrente had sat out the second free practice session but they were up to speed in session three with Weckström slotting into second behind Wyatt with a run of 43.244sec and three-time champion Torrente running a best of 43.807sec to move ahead of Stark and Seliö.

Teams will now make their final preparations for the customary three qualifying sessions on Friday morning at 09.00hrs (GMT +8).