LEPPALA WALTZ'S IN VIENNA!
GILLMAN'S 2ND KEEPS HIM IN CHAMPIONSHIP DANCE!

VIENNA, AUSTRIA (10th September) - Pertti Leppala proved that if you have a good boat, crew and personal training habits, you can win a 55 lap event even though you've been out of a boat for 9 months. The Finnish star cruised to a 26 second victory over American Scott Gillman to take the 5th Annual Grand Prix of Austria, the 10th Round of the U.I.M. F1 World Championship in front of thousands of race fans on the Danube River.

Leppala, who was 5th in the title a year ago and gave up powerboat racing this season for saloon car racing in his native Finland, came out of retirement and pipped the field in Guido Cappellini's boat in the Laserline/Castrol DAC/Mercury 2.5 litre machine. At the same time he's kept Scott Gillman from taking over the points lead for the World Championship.

Leppala, who had pole, set the race's fastest lap and built up a 5 second lead in just 3 tours around the 7-pin two kilometer course. The event, which took 3 starts to get the race underway, had a massive four boat crash on the first start, when Paul Gaiser, Fabrizio Bocca, Franco Leidi and Carlos Maidana got tied up on the run to the first turn, sending Bocca over the top of Maidana and tieing them both up, while both Gaiser and Leidi losing their powerheads on the back of their machine.

The 2nd start was stopped when Hungarian Rudy Mihaldinecz barrel rolled his boat twice off the start pin on the north side of the course ending his day. Once the race got finally going, Leppala had Gillman in the Adnoc Lubes/National Bank of Abu Dhabi DAC/Mercury 2.5 litre boat pushing hard to catch up to the Finnish star. By the mid-point of the event Leppala got caught in traffic giving Gillman a chance but he didn't get closer than 1.82 seconds and from then on Leppala cruised while Gillman decided to take the points and close to within 4 of the idle Cappellini at 120 to 116.

Behind Leppala and Gillman young Italian Francesco Cantando was struggling to stay up with the top 2, dropping back and almost being lapped by Gillman with 10 laps to go in his Singha Beer DAC/Mercury 2.5 litre boat. For Cantando he could smile despite his day being a long one after crashing his boat in turn 1 in morning warm-up. With a 3rd place in the race, Cantando has now finished on the podium in the last 5 events and has101 points good enough for 4th in the World Championship while staying in the hunt for the top crown.

Fabio Comparato, 3rd in the title chase and Cappelllini's teammate on the Laserline/Castrol team, was 4th at the end, just finishing ahead of a charging Jonathan Jones in the Fuchs/Eurobet Burgess/OMC 3.0 litre machine who was 5th and just 5 seconds behind at races end.

Victor Kunitch of the Kalnciems Racing Team finished strongly in 6th, with Duarte Benavente of Portugal in the Singha Beer DAC/Mercury happy with a 7th place despite being forced to run Cantando's old DAC and for the first time in his career something other than a Burgess hull in a F1 race.

Russian rookie Stanislav Kourtsenovsky was 8th in the Kalnciems Racing Team DAC/Mercury, while another rookie Rupp Temper in the Michael Werner prepared Valvoline entry was the last runner in 9th position.

Dropping out of the event were Finland's Sami Selio in the Valvoline Exide DAC/OMC after 30 laps, France's Philippe Dessertenne in the Fuchs/Eurobet out after 22 laps from the 6th position and Italy's Massimo Roggiero in the Petrobras DAC/Mercury after 9 laps while in 5th place.

The U.I.M. F1 World Championship now takes an 8 week break and will return to action for Round 11 in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates for the 17th of November race just outside Dubai in Khalid lagoon. The race for the world title is still very much up for grabs and the question still remains, can Cappellini come back to claim the title in Abu Dhabi, or will Gillman get enough points to pass Cappellini and claim his 2nd title? The last 2 events will decide the most exciting title in years!