Cappellini & Cantando In Top 3 For Tomorrow's 15:30 Start!
JOHOR BARU, MALAYSIA (24TH FEB)- In what many people said was a bit of "gamble", current World Champion Scott Gillman purchased a Burgess boat from England after 2 _ years with an Italian DAC hull and it paid off today, as the 2-time World Champion took the pole with a speed of 169.89 kph for tomorrow’s Grand Prix of Malaysia.
The opening round of the U.I.M. F1 World Championship for power boating saw the native of Basalt, Colorado, put the Emirates Team at the top of the charts with a 40:26 time around the rough 5-turn 2 kilometer course that seperates the State of Johor Malaysia with Singapore. The American driver said about his pole setting time: "I feel great. We only had 20 minutes of testing time in the boat in the U.K. prior to shipping it and we are still making adjustments with it," stated Gillman. "It’s the first time I’ve had a Burgess boat since 1983 when I ran it in the States, but I feel it can only get better when I feel more at home with it, you know, like an old shoe."
The native Californian picked the right time to take the quick time, going out on the first few minutes in the 2nd of two 45 minute timed sessions and went from 3rd quickest to 1st . He then sat back and watched the rest of the field try to go faster despite the weather starting to deteriorate with the wind kicking up with heavy rains. The two drivers who lost the chance for the pole were Italians Guido Cappellini of the Assicom Team and Francesco Cantando of the Singha Beer Team. Cantando had the fast time going into the final session with a 40.64 but couldn’t improve on that, taking out a turn bouy while pushing for the top spot. While Cappellini improved to a 40.42 and finished just .16 of a second behind Gillman with his newly finished DAC creation.
Italian Massimo Roggiero took the 4th spot with a 40.92 in his Petrobras Team DAC, being the final driver to run the course under 41 seconds. 5th quickest was Latvian pilot Victor Kounitch again impressing with limited race experience but showing good steady speed his his Vivid Racing Team DAC with a time of 41.52. Laith Pharon fresh off a new DAC, was 6th in his Hyatt Hotel and Resort craft with a 42.18 time.
The "Shootout" which is the final session of the day for the drivers to get pole position, takes the top 6 quickest and gives them 2 laps to get the quick time of the day. It didn’t make much of difference as the weather didn’t make conditions any easier and only Guido Cappellini was able to match his quick time of the day which wasn’t enough to take pole away from Gillman, his 14 career pole in his 4 plus years on the tour.
Argentinian pilot Carlos Maidana was 7th in his OMC powered Burgess with a great effort and a time of 42.46 seconds, while Frenchman Philippe Dessertenne switching back to Mercury power, was 8th with a 43.17 effort. Rookie Swedish pilot Jari Honkala was 9th with an identical 43.17 time to Dessertenne, while Finnish driver Sami Selio rounded out the top 10 with a 43.28 in his OMC powered DAC boat.
A pair of Malaysian drivers qualified together K. Y. Loi with the Caltex Havoline Team with a 51.68 for 22nd position and Simon Saw in his Waircom Malaysia boat failed to quality and is 23rd out of 24 starters expected on the grid for tomorrow’s 15:30 local start (02:30 Eastern Standard Time and 7:30 GMT).
Can Gillman win with his new boat or will Cappellini start off this season like last with a win. Or will young Cantando make it 3 wins in a row carrying over from last season. How about Roggiero or Jones coming forward and picking up their first wins in a pair of season’s. All these answers will be taken care of on Sunday afternoon as the U.I.M. F1 World Championship returns to Malaysia for the first time in 7 season’s in what should be a wonderful, hot day of sun and racing!
