GILLMAN TAKES POLE IN GRAND PRIX OF PORTUGAL!
MERCURY POWERS TOP 3 WITH DAC TEAM 2ND & 3RD!!

PORTIMAO, PORTUGAL - 29th APRIL: For the first time in many years the excitement of multi-brand race engines has returned to the U.I.M. F1 World Championship as Outboard Marine Corportation (OMC) has thrown down the challenge to the mainstay of powerplants, Mercury Marine.

However, once the qualifying for the opening round of the U.I.M F1 World Championship for powerboating was finished, two things became perfectly clear; firstly, it would be another season of tremendous battles on the water between the American Scott Gillman in the Abu Dhabi Tourism DAC boat verses the Laserline/Castrol DAC Racing team of defending World Champion Guido Cappellini and his teammate Fabio Comparato and secondly the new 2.5 liter Mercury engines outpaced the new challenge of the 3 liter OMC's.

Gillman, one of 4 pilots currently running the new spec 2.5 liter engine, waited until the final minutes of the 2nd qualifying session to take the pole away from Italian Cappellini with a time of 50.97 seconds for 114.77 kph lap around the difficult 9-pin 1700 meter course. Cappellini, who set his time in the 1st session settled for 2nd with a 51.63 second effort. For the native of Basalt, Colorado, it was Gillman on pole for the 3rd straight race carrying over from the last two events in 1999.

The 3rd position was still in dispute and not settled as Camparato was being protested by fellow Italian Massimo Roggiero for running an illegal exhaust on his 2.5 liter engine during the 2nd qualifying session after having set 3rd quickest time in session one with a time of 52.50 seconds in his 2 liter Mercury. Roggiero, also running a 2 liter Mercury powerplant did a 52.73 second lap and will unofficially start 4th.

Italian Fabrizio Bocca in the Rainbow Racing DAC/Mercury 2 liter engine was 5th with a 53.28 second time, while Francesco Cantando in the Singha Beer/Waircom DAC/Mercury 2.5 liter boat did well to finish 6th after receiving neck pains early in the session and suffered from total concentration from that point on.

Normally, a seperate 6 boat final qualifying session or "Shootout" would shuffle the field at the top, but Cappellini and the rest of the top 5 competitors could not go quicker in the session because of high winnds mixed with heavy wave conditions making running on the water only slower.

Native pilot Duarte Benavente of Lisbon, Portugal in the Singha Beer Burgess/Mercury 2 liter entry was 7th quickest with a 54.43 time, while Carlos Maidana the Argentinian pilot in the Texaco Havoline Burgess was the quickest OMC powered craft running his Johnson engine to a time of 55.25 seconds in the 2nd session, some 4.72 seconds slower than Gillman.

Hungarian Rudy Mihaldinecz was 9th in his Seebold/Mercury 2 liter Dunaferr/EMA-Power boat, while 1998 World Champion Jonathan Jones in the Fuchs/Eurobet Burgess/Johnson was still finishing his rigging of the latest David Burgess creation while setting a respectible 55.58 second lap.

Italian Franco Leidi in the Waircom Mare Magnum DAC/Mercury 2 liter machine was 11th, while Frenchman Philippe Dessertenne in the Fuchs/Eurobet DAC/Johnson was 12th. Finnish Sami Selio in the Interpass Veldon/Johnson was 13th, while rookie Paul Gaisar of Brazil was 14th quickest with a time 1:00.19 in his Petrobras DAC/Mercury 2 liter.

Another rookie, Awad Al Qubaisi of the Abu Dhabi Tourism team spent all of Saturday in the hospital with a high fever hoping to be strong enough to start at the tail end of the field for the opening round of the 2000 season of the U.I.M. F1 World Championship of Powerboating.

If the Roggiero protest stands every driver will move up one position from 3rd place on and Camparato will be put to the back of the field.

The 15 boat field will take the green light on the Arade river at 11:45 GMT or 7:45 Eastern Daylight Time.