luck suffered during a start line accident he had suffered in Doha
a week before destroying his number one race boat.
Sami, despite this, dominated the day reasserting himself to the
top of drivers’ championship with a win in Abu Dhabi for his 12th
career victory tying Francesco Cantando of the Singha F1 Team
as the winningest most active driver on the tour.
Selio, with 64 points was now two ahead of Torrente’s 62 and
four in front of Alex’s 60. Philippe Chiappe was still in the hunt at
4 with 20 points still there for the taking with the final round at
the Grand Prix of Sharjah two weeks later.
In one of the closest finishing scenarios in the 0 years of racing
on the UIM F1H2O World Championship tour, four drivers were
still in the hunt in their chase for glory chasing the title. It would
all come down to this one race.
Qualifying was critical on the newly modified five-pin circuit and
when the one-hour session for pole position was completed it
was the two-time World Champion Carella who had earned the
number one spot ahead of his teammate Torrente with Chiappe
taking third on the start dock.
The biggest surprise came when points leader Selio accidentally
took himself out of picture by crashing out just before the run
for pole position forcing a boat and engine change. Sami was
now starting practically at the end of the dock and praying for a
miracle to happen to have any chance of becoming a three-time
World Champion.
:hen the final checkered ïag fell to end the 201 season, it
was Alex Carella setting the stage with a perfect run. He never
once made a wrong move during the event leading from start-
to- finish for all laps and earning his eighth career victory and
adding another World Championship to his resume in just 25
career starts.
Shaun Torrente would make it a Qatar Team one-two sweep,
pushing Alex early and then realizing he didn’t have an answer
for the Italian. Shaun then decided to be cautious by backing
down enough to finish third. Philippe Chiappe pushed Carella
to the end finishing second and third overall for the season with
69 points.
In the end, the multi-national mixture of American-Italian and
Qatari individuals meshed perfectly with Team Manager Khalid
Al Kuwari steering the organization again taking the Team
Championship with 154 points. Driver Alex Carella had two
victories and five podiums, while Shaun Torrente had one victory
and four podiums in six races.
H20 MAGAZINE - MARCH 2014 | 19
h2oracing.net
