Tuesday, October 18:  The decision to shorten the Olbia course and revise the start procedure for last weekend’s Italian Grand Prix of Regione Sardegna could well prove to be a new dawn when it comes to planning and organising F1H2O races in the future.

With the course shortened and the race increased to 70 laps, officials at H2O Racing also modified the start procedure for the first time to avoid excess traffic and the risk of an incident at the first turn buoy. The top 10 boats from Saturday’s qualifying left the start pontoon four seconds before the second group of five and the change in the start protocol was rewarded with a smooth action-packed race and no serious incident of note.

It now means that venues around the world that may otherwise have been deemed unsuitable for hosting a round of the UIM F1H2O World Championship could well be considered practical, bearing in mind the success of the decisions made at the weekend in Olbia.

“I guess racing on smaller circuits does give us a degree of additional flexibility,” said H2O Racing’s Founder Nicolò di San Germano. “It shows that there is not necessarily a need for larger circuits and we could race in many different places using the new format.”

As a case in point, there were a couple of accidents on a larger course on the Po River back in September and the Olbia event passed without serious incident, despite concerns from some quarters that the course was too short.

The 2022 UIM F1H2O World Championship reaches its conclusion with back-to-back races on Khaled Lagoon in Sharjah in mid-December.