The safety boat held the 6-boat pack under yellow,
releasing them halfway round lap 17 for a two lap
sprint to the chequered flag, Forss holding his
nerve to take the win and maximum points for
Team Sweden.
Qatar’s Khalid Al Kuwari, the elder statesman of the
series at 37, held off a sustained early challenge
from the youngest driver out on the water Team
Nautica’s, 17-year-old Morgan Fernplast and was
moving clear when the yellow flag came out, but he
held on to take fourth his teammate Mohamed Al-
Obaidly finishing three laps down in sixth.
With the young Latvian Lijcs topping the time
sheets and turning the tables on Forss in practice
and qualifying sessions on day 2, and Szymura
qualifying third, the scene was set for a thrilling
three-way dice for the overall win, but, as the boats
motored out to the pontoon the winds that had
been blowing on and off all day picked up.
Race officials held them on the pontoon and
delayed the start for 15 minutes to see if the winds
would abate, but erred on the side of caution with
safety taking precedence and eventually taking the
decision to cancel the race.
The decision meant that the overall win in Qatar
was awarded to race 1 winner Jesper Forss with
Mike Szymura and Nikita Lijcs completing the
podium.
POS NOS DRIVER
TEAM
POINTS
1
41 Jesper Forss (swe)
Sweden
20
2
10 Mike Szymura (ger)
F1 Atlantic / Interpass / GC
15
3
71 Nikita Lijcs (lat)
Mad Croc BABA Racing
12
4
63 Khalid Al Kuwari (qat)
Qatar
9
5
78 Morgan Jernfast (swe)
Nautica
7
6
96 Mohamad Al Obaidly (qat)
Qatar
5
35 Jan Andre Landsnes (nor)
Motorglass F1
88 Bingchen Wu (chn)
CTIC China
after round 1
F-4S EUROFIN TROPHY 2014
H20 MAGAZINE - SEPTEMBER 2014 | 29
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