Thursday, October 2: Seventeen of the 20 racers took advantage of the second free practice session for this weekend’s UIM F1H2O Grand Prix of Shanghai, China and Team Sweden’s Jonas Andersson topped the times in the one-hour stint on Thursday lunchtime.
The pace was much more frenetic at the start of the second free practice session on the Huangpu River. The Red Devil-SMC F1 Team’s Sami Seliö was again at the forefront of the early action: the Finn carded a stunning lap of 42.879sec in the opening minutes to move ahead of the Sharjah Team duo of Stefan Arand and championship leader Rusty Wyatt, who both ran sub-44-second laps.
Bartek Marszalek of Strømøy Racing had languished near the foot of the rankings in free practice one but the Pole put the pedal to the metal at the start of the second session and carded a 44.550sec lap in the first few minutes.
Arand is a man on a mission this weekend and the young Estonian stormed to the top of the standings just before the 15-minute mark with the fastest lap of the weekend so far – a run of 42.826sec. That was 0.028 seconds quicker than the time set by Seliö’s team-mate Ferdinand Zandbergen shortly before the session was yellow-flagged.
The China CTIC Team’s Peter Morin is determined to shine on home waters for his team. The Frenchman ran a 44.077sec lap early in the session. He said: “We had a bad accident in Indonesia and all the team has worked very hard to repair the boat and build two boats for this race. This is a totally different course. This is our home race but all the people have enjoyed seeing the boat.”
Stark had topped the times in the first free practice in the morning. The Swede said: “How we started in Indonesia was not how we wanted to start with a top team. But that is racing. It can happen. Conditions are very tricky this morning. Maybe better than last year. But I feel motivated again and I am here to win. The conditions are tricky because it’s a high-speed course and there are some rollers (waves) coming in from the ocean. We don’t see them before we feel them. You try to be on the limit without crossing the limit. We have a spare boat exactly the same as the one we destroyed in Indonesia.”
After the yellow flag, action resumed with around 38 minutes of the session remaining but Arand and Zandbergen continued to top the times from Seliö, Wyatt and Marszalek.
Alberto Comparato posted an early lap of 43.839sec. The Italian said: “I quite like the course. It is quite short and that suits me. It is a bit challenging when the rollers are coming but we need to be careful with the pace when we make the turn. I broke the trim in the first free practice but we managed to fix it.”
Heading into the second half of the stint, 13 of the 20 drivers had taken to the course but Arand’s run of 42.826sec was still the benchmark. The China CTIC Team’s Canadian rookie Kyle Maskall returned to action with 20 minutes on the clock and opened his account with a 47.281sec run before breaking the sub-47-second barrier on his next run.
Defending World Champion Jonas Andersson had been quiet by his high standards in the opening session but the Swede had his DAC dialled in nicely and stormed to the top of the rankings with a lap of 42.578sec on his ninth lap of the stint. Morin also ran quicker than Arand with a tour of 42.774sec.
Andersson then ran an even quicker lap of 41.579sec to fire a salvo across the bow of his rivals before the final session in the afternoon. That lap was 1.195 seconds faster than the time set by his closest rival Morin in the session.
The Victory Team duo of Alec Weckström and Shaun Torrente and the F1 Atlantic Team’s Portuguese veteran Duarte Benavente sat out the session, which was yellow-flagged again with just over two minutes remaining.
