Singapore Course Expected To Be Another Rough Event!

SINGAPORE, September 17, 2005 – Small numbers mean a lot and for Guido Cappellini the 8-time World champion who is ready to try and make the Grand Prix in Singapore his 3rd straight win of the season he saved his best lap for his last by nipping the pole away from American Scott Gillman of the Emirates Team by 5/100th’s of a second running a 43.98 around the 1.86 kilometer course in downtown Singapore for tomorrow’s 6th Annual Grand Prix of Singapore on lovely Marina Bay.

The native of Como, Italy grabbed his 59th career pole position after just moments after the crowd of thousands had gasped when the two time winner Gillman had done what many thought would be the pole time of a 44.03 improving by 1.75 seconds from 3rd quickest driver Francesco Cantando of the Singha Team.

“We were serious about taking the pole position,” stated the Tamoil team driver. “We changed our propeller 3 times in the final 5 minutes to finally make the right choice on the day. I feel good about tomorrow.”

For the Emirates Team driver Gillman was not afraid to give good comments about Cappellini’s run. “We did our best and Guido did just a hair better,” stated the native of Los Angeles. “We will do our usual run here in Singapore tomorrow. It will be rough and that’s OK by us.”

Francesco Cantando came charging his way to 3rd after playing catch up all day improving from 4th quickest to 3rd in the shootout with a 45.78 second lap. He has crashed his last two years here and is ready to turn around this string of bad luck.

“We are ready to push and feel like we can do this tomorrow as we get used to our new boat,” stated the native of Milan. “We have a lot of confidence in our race set up and hopefully it will show on the water.”

Fourth quickest was Saudi driver Laith Pharaon who qualified at a 45.85 improving by one position from the final afternoon session in his Team Green DAC Mercury powered boat.

5th on the day went to Sami Selio of Finland in his Selio F1 Racing machine doing a 46.75 dropping down from 2nd quickest after the 2nd session. French driver Philippe Dessertenne came in 6th with a 47.86 in his Ligier Charente Maritime machine.

David Trask of Australia in the XPV Racing boat finished a career best 7th just missing the top-6 shootout position with a 50.63 qualifying effort. In the 8th position is Italian Massimo Roggiero in the second Team Green machine with a 49.58 and an average slower than Trask at days end.

Fabio Comparato, 2nd in the championship was qualifying a disappointing 9th with a 50.35 now needing to charge from mid pack with Norweigan driver Rolf Sunde replacing an ill Gert Ladefoged with a 51.32 best in a well placed effort.

Tomorrow’s 6th Annual Grand Prix of Singapore will be starting with 23 drivers from 13 different coutries once again being forced into a 1.86 kilometer bull ring on the water that will be another large challenge for the thousands that will be on board for the 15:30 local Singapore time, 7:30 GMT and 03:30 EDT on the East Coast of North America.