CAPPELLINI CONTROLS WILD HOME GRAND PRIX IN ITALY!
GILLMAN'S 2ND OPENS DOOR TO CHAMPIONSHIP!

COMO, ITALY (3rd September) - Local hero and 5-time World Champion Gudio Cappellini battled through numerous starts, 3 different accidents, and plenty of backmarkers, while pushing his way through the longest race day of the season enroute to his 6th victory of the year on the U.I.M. F1 World Championship for powerboating at the Grand Prix of Italy. Cappellini must now wait to see if he can still win the World Championship despite his 2nd winningest season of his long and illustrius career.

Four different starts and three different crashes proved that the 2.0 kilometer 6-pin course on the southern edge of Lake Como continues to be one of the thoughest venues on the U.I.M. F1 World Championship for powerboating. The 9th Round of the 2000 season started off with the field of 20 drivers from 11 different countries heading off into the first turn of the race causing a bunchup with American Scott Gillman getting punched up from behind, while Hungarian Rudy Mihaldinecz taking on water and racing to the crane area.

After numerous attempts to get the race restarted, Cappellini jumped out front with Francesco Cantando pushing past Scott Gillman and into 2nd place. Gillman's teammate on the Emirates Team, Hawad Al Quibasi came roaring up from 9th into a side by side battle with Gillman for 3rd. Gillman, held off his young teammate with Mihaldinecz pushing fast on the Emirates players in 5th. Al Quibasi would fall into a hole just past the breakwater in turn 1 barrell rolling to a stop on the first official lap. Back to the dock and on the restart, Cappellini, Cantando and Gillman were 1,2,3 and stayed that way until Italian Massimo Roggiero barrell rolled at the same spot that Al Quibasi did just past turn 1 on the 17th lap. By this time, Laith Pharaon, Duarte Benevente, Jonathan Jones and Carlos Maidana were gone from the event.

This time the restart Gillman had a terrible start and dropped from 3rd to 6th before charging his way back to 3rd in one lap behind Cappallini and Cantando. Latvian pilot Victor Kunitch was the next victum of the circuit barrell rolling into turn 6 and forcing another restart on the 20th lap. Teammate and rookie driver to Kunitch, Stanislas Kourtsenovsky of St. Petersburg, Russia dropped out on the 22nd lap, while Cipriano Lambri, Roberto Carezzo of Italy and Franco Leidi also ended their day early.

With Cappellini doing just enough to stay ahead of Cantando and Scott Gillman, all of a sudden Cantando started to develop a pickup problem in the right handers and finally Gillman found a way past with less than 10 laps to go. Cantando problems continued and as he slowed to a stop but moved into 3rd to reach the podium, moved into 3rd to reach the podium, dropping Cappellini's teammate Fabio Comparato to 4th.

The drive of the day may have come from Finnish youngster Sami Selio who started 20th and finished 5th in the first OMC powered boat, while Rudy Mihaldinecz finished 6th. France's Philippe Dessertenne was 7th Italy's Fabrizio Bocca was 8th and Brazilian rookie Paul Gaiser was 9th.

With Cappellini's win, he now has 120 points on the season with Gillman sitting at 101. Comparato now has 99 and Cantando has 86. The next and 10th round of the U.I.M. F1 World Championship will take place next weekend on the Danube River in Vienna, Austria.