Alec Weckstrom claims a second career Grand Prix win on his return to racing in China
Monday, October 5: The last time the UIM F1H2O World Championship raced in China, Victory Team’s Alec Weckstrom gained a maiden career win after an excellently managed race in Zhengzhou. This year, at the Grand Prix of Shanghai-China, Weckstrom’s Chinese fortunes looked set to continue going into the race, after he claimed pole position in qualifying and cruised to victory in yesterday's Sprint Race 1.
Weckstrom had the perfect start to the race, capitalising on his pole position to comfortably reach the first turn in the lead, with team mate Shaun Torrente behind him in second place, and Sharjah Team’s Stefan Arand hot on Torrente’s tail in third place. At the other end of the racing pack, multiple-time World Champion Jonas Andersson had a strong start of his own after starting in last place due to an engine change. Andersson put his Team Abu Dhabi boat’s pace to full use, flying off the start and gaining several positions, with his aggressive overtaking style seeing him almost collide with tenth place Ben Jelf on the first lap.
As the drivers continued to fight for early overtakes on the second lap, the race was suddenly slowed by a Yellow Flag, the cause being Brent Dillard flipping his China CTIC Team boat over and ending up in the water. The American was closely trailing seventh place Rashed Al Qemzi, his visibility reduced as a result of the water’s spray, and was too slow to accelerate out of the course’s right-hander, thereby failing to get his trim out of the water and having it dip under, causing the catamaran to rotate over and ending Dillard’s race early.
Before the Yellow Flag, Weckstrom had built up a small lead of almost three seconds which was duly wiped out, with all the drivers bunching up in anticipation of the race’s restart. When the Green Flag came, Weckstrom had to contend with current World Champion Torrente trailing him tightly, but in his keenness to take the lead, Torrente fatefully attempted to overtake his team mate on the right-hander that had just ended Dillard’s race. Weckstrom took the turn wide, which Torrente took as an invitation to overtake, but the gap was too small for Torrente to squeeze through, so the American rode into the right side of Weckstrom’s boat and duly spun out, ending his race challenge and jeopardising his chances of retaining his world title.
Fortunately for Weckstrom, his boat remained unscathed from the collision, so he maintained his race lead. But just because Torrente was now out, it did not mean Weckstrom’s lead was secure; Arand was now on his tail waiting for the restart, hoping to secure a second Grand Prix win of the season. Once the Yellow Flag was gone, Arand immediately began to challenge Weckstrom for the lead, with the two young drivers going side by side for the first few turns. Weckstrom managed to hold his own, blocking potential overtakes, and wearing down Arand. But even though Weckstrom put some distance between himself and Arand, the two were never separated by more than three seconds throughout the remainder of the race.
It was with 16 laps to go that Weckstrom almost dramatically lost his lead, after the Finn struggled to control his turn and slip wide, colliding with lapped traffic in the form of Atlantic Team’s Ben Jelf. Luckily for Weckstrom, the two boats bounced off each other, rather than spinning out as his team mate Torrente had done. He managed to hold onto his lead, even though Arand was now closer to the top spot.
Two laps later, Rusty Wyatt’s season continued to get worse, as the Sharjah Team driver faced mechanical issues that caused his boat to come to a stop in the middle of the course. The Yellow Flag was out yet again as Wyatt waited to be towed away, alongside Jelf and Al Qemzi who also ended the race early with less than a third of the 45 laps to go.
When racing resumed, there were 11 laps left and only nine boats were still in the race. The restart greatly benefitted Grant Trask and Andersson, both of whom shot off the restart and completed a triple overtake of Alberto Comparato, then Stefan Hagin, and finally Sami Selio, which put Trask and Andersson in third and fourth place respectively.
Arand still had his sights set on Weckstrom, though by that point the Estonian was nursing a broken propeller and therefore opted for caution. He nonetheless remained close to the leader, going into the final lap just 1.096 seconds behind him, but by that point it was too late. Weckstrom topped off a perfect return to China, completing the hat-trick of pole position, Sprint Race, and Grand Prix wins. Arand moved to the top of the standings in the Drivers’ World Championship, keeping his hopes of a maiden world title alive after he failed to finish the last Grand Prix in Kyrgyzstan. His team mate Trask took the last podium place, ahead of Andersson who finished in fourth.
