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quite satisfied with that. I think it shows where
we are and hopefully we can work on one or
two areas to find some more pace.” commented
Benavente.
There has never been a lack of passion in the
Blaze Performance camp and there was certainly
a spring in the step of Francesco Cantando after
one the team’s best weekends for many a Grand
Prix, the enigmatic Italian delivering his strongest
qualifying outing in ninth and then his best race
result in his relatively new Blaze finishing in
eighth. “I am quite happy. For such a long time
we have not had such a good weekend. The boat
was running fantastic but we were a little short on
propellers but now we know what we need,” he
said. “I am confident that next time we go out we
will improve a little more. We are working hard,
the improvements are coming and the guys have
worked so hard and are doing a great job. It is a
big puzzle that we have to put together but now
we really have something to work with. It is a
struggle but this gives us a lot of energy.”
Cantando’s new teammate Simone Schuft came
through her championship debut unscathed
getting through all practice sessions and BRM
Qualifying and going on to record her first Grand
Prix finish in 15th.
If Jonas Andersson was hoping for an uneventful
weekend in Portugal he didn’t get it and it was his
teammate Erik Edin who had the quieter time and
picked up points in ninth place.
Andersson was running a brand new boat but
his hopes of a strong showing in BRM Qualifying
ended when he limped back to the pits during Q2
with a gaping hole on the right sponson. A change
of boat and he would start, but from down in 17th
his race lasting less than a minute after a coming
together with Emirates Racing’s Marit Stromoy. “I
think we were three boats going into the same
turn. Marit was close to me and we hit. She
caught me or I caught her on the side and then
the engine burst into flames. It was just one of
those weekends.” said Andersson.
It was a frustrating ending to a somewhat
frustrating weekend for Stromoy who qualified
well in eighth despite the best efforts of several
of her peers to block her progress and as she
put it ‘make my life quite miserable so I wasn’t at
all happy’ then breaking the engine and having
to start from 16th .“We took two different lines
I went on the inside and Jonas went outside. He
turned in through the spray and there I was. It
was just a race accident but for a few seconds
I was just a passenger in my own boat. My boat
spun out onto his and then the little fire. There’s
F1H2O
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