Wyatt leads the way as F1H2O World Championship heads to Zhengzhou

The recent Grand Prix of Shanghai China may have been shortened to 11 laps because of the freak weather conditions on the Huangpu River but the outcome of the race proved that Rusty Wyatt’s two victories in Indonesia and Sardinia were no flashes in the pan and the Sharjah Team’s Canadian super rookie is here to stay.

A little over a week on from that weekend in the China’s third largest city, racing equipment has been moved north-west through the country to the city of Zhengzhou for the fifth and penultimate round of the 2024 UIM F1H2O World Championship on the Yellow River on Oct.17-19.

The Government of Zhengzhou, race promotor Tianrong and the China Motorboat Association (CMA) will be able to showcase the promotion of the exciting new Henan Development and the city of Zhengzhou for a second year after the city took its place in the calendar for the first time in April 2023.

H2O Racing and local officials will be hoping for better weather conditions on this occasion as the fight for the UIM F1H2O Drivers’ and Teams’ Championship hots up before the season’s finale in Sharjah in early December.

Wyatt and his team braved the conditions better than any of their rivals in Shanghai and the boat was set-up well for the demanding conditions, with strong tides, gusting winds, rain and choppy waters making the actual race more of a survival exercise. Wyatt’s emphatic win has lifted him 17.5 points ahead of the Victory Team’s Erik Stark in the points’ standings and he leads the defending World Champion Jonas Andersson by 18 points.

Team Vietnam’s Andersson admitted after the Shanghai race that he couldn’t find the ideal boat set-up for the rough conditions and he struggled to match Wyatt’s pace.

As a result of that win and Filip Roms’s ninth place in Shanghai, the Sharjah Team now leads Team Vietnam by 1.5 points in the Teams’ Championship with Stromoy Racing holding on to third, despite a disappointing weekend for Marit Stromoy and Bartek Marszalek in Shanghai. However, the pair are still seventh and fifth in the Drivers’ Championship.

Stromoy missed the entire qualifying session because of a dashboard electrical gremlin on her normally-reliable Mercury V8, four-stroke-engined DAC and was forced to start the race from the rear of the pontoon. She finished 15th, a place ahead of her Polish team-mate.

Stromoy has been jetting across the planet in the build up to Zhengzhou. “I headed off straight to Malaga via Qatar after the race,” said the Norwegian. “In Malaga, I was a keynote speaker and singer at an event. Then it was back to Norway and, after a short night’s sleep, I needed to be at the Chinese visa centre in Oslo to get an express visa for China. Then I flew back to join the rest of the team and hopefully in better water conditions.”

Rashed up for the challenge: Team Abu Dhabi’s Rashed Al Qemzi says he is under no pressure to push for a big result when he returns to action in the 2024 UIM F1H2O World Championship at the Grand Prix of Zhengzhou.

The five-time UIM F2 world champion joins forces again with his cousin, veteran Emirati driver Thani Al Qemzi, following the mutual decision by Team Abu Dhabi and Alberto Comparato to part company.

“Like everyone else in the team, I wish Alberto great success in the future, and we all know that we’re going to see a lot more from him in the years ahead,” said Al Qemzi, who moved into the record books by clinching his latest F2 triumph last month.

“Now I have another good opportunity to show what I can do in the F1H2O World Championship and help the team, and I’m happy to be racing with Thani again.

“As always, I’ll be giving everything I’ve got, and I want to get the best result possible. But there’s no extra pressure from the team, and obviously it’s going to be tough. The standard is so high in this championship. There are so many great drivers pushing for the win, and for the podium,”

While dominating the F2 championship in recent times with five titles in eight years, Al Qemzi has regularly stepped up to Team Abu Dhabi’s F1H2O line-up when needed.