17 / 44
or the final race of
the European leg
of the 2018 season
the championship
headed to France
for its 275th Grand
Prix.
The championship
leader Philippe Chiappe would line-up in Evian for
the 22nd Grand Prix of France, round 3 of the UIM
F1H2O World Championship looking for his first win
of the season and to end his run of bad luck on the
2.08km Lac Leman Circuit.
The CTIC F1 Shenzhen China driver, whose podiums
in Portimao and London had given him a slender
three point advantage in the standings in a tight
title race with just 22 points splitting the top ten,
has a good record in BRM Qualifying in Evian with a
pole and two top three starts but had failed to get
his Moore hull to the chequered flag on all three
occasions and was looking to end that statistic and
the 20 year wait for a French driver to win a Grand
Prix on home waters.
But once again the Evian gremlins struck, a broken
propeller early in the race robbing him of any
chance of a victory.
Team Abu Dhabi’s audacious move to sign up
London Grand Prix winner Erik Stark added even
more firepower to an already very impressive strike
force, the Swede lining up with new teammates
Thani Al Qemzi, sitting in second sport in the
championship standings and round 1 winner Shaun
Torrente, who had podiumed in Evian in his last two
outings and was looking to shrug off his self-inflicted
exit from the London race and focus on making up
for dropping those valuable points.
F1H2O
F
F1H2O
17