Tuesday, November 12: Khalid Lagoon is a man-made stretch of water spread over 1,720,000 hectares of water surface but it has been better known in international sporting circles as the host location for a round of the UIM F1H2O World Championship since the turn of the Millennium.
Home to the seventh tallest flag pole in the world, the brackish waters of Khalid Lagoon are already etched in racing folklore and the demanding race course will again host the final round of this year’s World Championship on December 6th-8th.
The Sharjah International Marine Sports Club and H2O Racing jointly hosted the inaugural race in November 2000. Francesco Cantando stole the spotlight in that first ever race in the UAE’s third largest emirate, the Italian coming home ahead of Scott Gillman, Salem Al-Khattal, Massimo Roggiero and Duarte Benavente, the latter remarkably still competing 24 years later as a member of the F1 Atlantic Team.
Italian legend Guido Cappellini won in Sharjah the following year on his way to confirming the world title at the Abu Dhabi Breakwater and the Italian won the title again in 2002, despite being disqualified in Sharjah at a race where Roggiero claimed the win.
Gillman was triumphant in 2003 but the American retired at the final round in Abu Dhabi and third place for Cappellini was enough to secure yet another title. Sharjah hosted the Grand Prix of the UAE in 2004 and that was the final round of the championship. Gillman stormed to victory but had already won the world title.
Sharjah became the traditional final round for the first time in 2005 with Cappellini taking the win from Sami Seliö and Cantando.
Thani Al-Qamzi and Seliö won for the next two years and Al-Qamzi repeated the feat to claim his second success in 2008. The 2009 season saw a pair of races staged on Khalid Lagoon and American World Champion Jay Price and Seliö earned a win apiece.
The late Ahmed Al-Hameli claimed back-to-back wins for Team Abu Dhabi in 2010 and 2011, although the 2011 encounter was better remembered for the dramatic collision between the Qatar Team’s Alex Carella and Price at the first turn buoy. By taking each other out of the race, Carella sealed the title by just five points.
Al-Qamzi earned his third victory at the Khaled Lagoon venue in 2012 and Carella clinched another world title by winning in Sharjah in 2013 but the Italian gave second best to Frenchman Philippe Chiappe in both Sharjah and the World Championship in 2014. Fast forward 12 months and Chiappe was again crowned World Champion but Marit Strømoy claimed a memorable first ever victory at the race on Khalid Lagoon. In so doing, she became the first woman ever to win an F1H2O race – a record that still stands nine years on.
American racer Shaun Torrente snatched his first win at the race course in 2016, Carella was on top again in 2017 and Sweden’s Erik Stark prevailed in 2018 and narrowly missed out on the world title to Torrente. Team Sweden’s Jonas Andersson beat Torrente to the win in Sharjah in 2019 but missed out on the title to the American on a tie-breaker.
Racing was cancelled in 2020 and only Europe hosted races in 2021 but Sharjah returned to the World Championship calendar to host a pair of Grand Prix in December 2022. Andersson and Chiappe claimed the race wins but Torrente snatched the world title in dramatic circumstances when Andersson retired from the second race.
Last year, Andersson exacted his revenge and stormed to victory to seal a second world title in emphatic style after taking wins in the last four races of the season.
Andersson is now with Team Vietnam and he will face off with Sharjah Team rookie Rusty Wyatt, the China CTIC Team’s Peter Morin and the Victory Team’s Stark to battle it out for the 2024 World Championship at the Road to Sharjah-Grand Prix of Sharjah in less than a month’s time.
