Friday, August 22: While most of the western world was in slumber, spectacular Lake Toba and the town of Balige hosted the opening two free practice sessions of the new UIM F1H2O World Championship season on Friday morning.
Ten teams and 20 drivers have entered the 3rd Grand Prix of Indonesia and had the opportunity to take to the water for the first time in an official capacity since the finale to the Road to Sharjah-Grand Prix of Sharjah last December. The revised practice timetable was split into two sessions of 50 minutes and 40 minutes to give drivers as much time on the race course as possible.
Marit Strømøy was the first driver on to the water after an initial delay to session one while turn buoys were secured in the deeper water. She was followed through the opening lap by Ferdinand Zandbergen before 15 of their rivals also took to the water for a first foray into 2025 action.
Alberto Comparato was the first racer to record a sub-1min 03sec lap and then Canada’s Rusty Wyatt laid down the benchmark with a 1min 01.111sec only for that to be beaten by Shaun Torrente’s lap of 1min 00.958sec.
Speaking before the start, Wyatt said: “We won in Indonesia last year and got second in the championship. We can only hope to start the year off again the same this time. It’s a five-race series this year so we don’t have time to screw any of these races up. Hopefully, we can keep the same luck and the same momentum going that we had last year and carry on. It’s a much different time of year and the water looks much smoother. The wind is very soft compared to last year. We will give it a go, that’s for sure. We’ve also got the new Sharjah boat under the tent and will be testing that soon.”
Defending champion Jonas Andersson took to the water after eight minutes of the session and then Comparato hit the top of the timings with a 1min 00.310sec run. With 18 racers on the water and 10 minutes of the session gone, no-one had yet run a sub one-minute lap.
But that changed quickly: Andersson soon had his DAC dialled in and ran a 58.956sec flier on his fifth lap, as his new team-mate Johan Österberg took to the water for the first time. The Comparato F1 Team’s Damon Cohen was the only driver yet to start the practice session. Andersson’s potent lap stood proud at the top of the timings but Wyatt ran it close with a 59.542sec tour on his 12th lap of the Lake Toba course.
Andersson then upped the target with a storming run of 57.754sec on his 16th lap. Team Abu Dhabi’s rookie Mansoor Al-Mansoori was also putting the laps in before his Grand Prix debut and was ranked eighth of the drivers after 33 laps of the course.
Andersson’s subsequent fastest lap of 57.720sec eventually topped the times in the opening free practice session with a returning Shaun Torrente posting a very late 58.772sec flier to finish ahead of the rejuvenated Comparato (59.317sec), Wyatt, Ben Jelf (59.676sec), Bartek Marszalek, and Alec Weckström his closest challengers. Only five racers broke the one-minute barrier.
Teams had another 40 minutes in session two to find the optimum set-up for qualifying. Only 14 drivers took to the water for the session with just a short time available afterwards before the start of qualifying.
The China CTIC Team’s Peter Morin had the water to himself after taking his turn on the course after 10 minutes. The Frenchman managed to dial in his Moore over the subsequent few laps and ran a best of 1min 00.060sec on his eighth tour. He was joined midway through the stint by Maverick Racing’s Alexandre Bourgeot: the Frenchman carded a best run of 1min 01.650sec.
Andersson’s opening lap was a stunning run of 57.828sec but Marszalek was also able to break the one-minute barrier with an opener of 59.842sec. Andersson then ran the fastest lap of the weekend thus far – a flier of 56.580sec – to top the times in the session from Stark (57.991sec), Marszalek (58.920sec), Jelf (58.982sec) and Wyatt (59.527sec) before the session was yellow-flagged with a little over four minutes remaining after a turn buoy became dislodged.
Qualifying takes centre stage at 11.30hrs (local time) this morning. Not only will it determine the starting order for the Grand Prix of Indonesia on Sunday, but it will also finalise the drivers who line up in the two Sprint races on Saturday.
