Saturday, December 7: Team Vietnam’s Jonas Andersson took one step closer to retaining his world title with a dominant start-to-finish victory in the first of the two Sprint races at the Road to Sharjah-Grand Prix of Sharjah on Khalid Lagoon on Saturday afternoon.
The Swede led from start-to-finish to reach the chequered flag 3.398 seconds clear of the China CTIC Team’s Peter Morin. Two-time World Champion Sami Seliö rounded off the opening Sprint race podium.
Andersson said: “It was a good one. I had a fantastic start and after that I tried to push. I then had a gap to Peter (Morin) and I just tried to control the race. I was testing something for tomorrow, so I am happy with the set-up.”
Third-placed Seliö added: “It was a good start and the boat lifted up very nicely. I didn’t really have the pace in the race and it was difficult to overtake. You need to be so much faster to overtake. It is not easy. I am happy for third but it is not what we are aiming for with the new boat. We need to work hard for the set-up to get it right.”
Great Britain’s Ben Jelf guided his F1 Atlantic Team hull to fourth and the Sharjah Team’s Filip Roms and Morin’s team-mate Brent Dillard rounded off the top six.
Fourth-placed Jelf is relishing Sunday’s race after qualifying in fifth. He said: “This morning was a brilliant result for us. We have been working all season to get ourselves into the top six. All the work has paid off. We weren’t expecting to get into Q3. Fuel was low and we couldn’t replicate the lap in Q3.”
Maverick Racing’s Cédric Deguisne and Team Vietnam’s Kalle Viippo rounded off the finishers, a lap behind the triumphant Andersson.
Andersson lined up on pole position for the opening 16-lap Sprint race with Morin, Jelf, Dillard and Seliö slotting in as his closest challengers., Filip Roms, Cédric Deguisne and Kalle Viippo completed the eight-boat field. A dejected Marit Strømøy suffered ongoing technical issues with the electrics on the Apex four-stroke V8-engined DAC and was not able to start the Sprint race.
Victory for Andersson would be critical in his final push for the title and would put him 13 points clear of Rusty Wyatt before the Canadian took to the water from sixth position in the second Sprint race. The Swede stormed away from the start and began to edge away from Morin and a flying Seliö through the opening lap. Jelf held fourth ahead of Roms and Dillard.
Andersson increased his lead to 3.909sec through lap two as the eight drivers held station into lap three. By one-quarter distance, the lead has risen to 4.730sec and Dillard began to apply pressure on Roms in the battle for fifth.
Andersson managed his pace to perfection over the closing laps and reached the finish with a lead of 3.398 seconds over the hard-pushing Morin. Seliö held off Jelf’s unwanted advances to snatch third place and eight valuable championship points.
