CAPPELLINI CRUISES TO 4TH STRAIGHT WIN IN HUNGARY!
GILLMAN 2ND; TORTA GAINS FIRST PODIUM!

BUDAPEST, Hungary: (23rd June 2002) – Italian points leader Guido Cappellini recorded his 42nd career victory on way to his 3 win in four starts and leads the championship with 60 points for the U.I.M. F1 World Championship for powerboating at the Grand Prix of Hungary in front of 40,000 in Budapest.

Cappellini, who crashed out of the lead last week in Helsinki, came back and took the pole position yesterday and led ever tour of the 60 lap event. The native of Como, Italy defeated American Scott Gillman by 6 seconds as the Emirates lead driver introduced his new Abu Dhabi hull to the world with a 2nd place qualifying run yesterday and now has a large smile on his face knowing the boat can only get better since it arrived with just 30 minutes of testing before being shipped to Europe last week. The Colorado native is now 4th in the title chase with 27 points.

Gillman, finished just ahead of Italian Ivan Torta of the Singha Beer Waircom boat as he celebrates his 27th birthday two days early with his first ever podium result. His weekend was complete as he qualified for 6th giving him his first "shootout" appearance yesterday of his career. He battled and closed on Gillman, but ran out of time and finished 3 seconds back at the end.

Fabio Comparato struggled to a 4th place finish, but it was enough to move him into 2nd place overall in the title with 33 points and 27 behind Cappellini. It was a good result considering Comparato struggled with minor problems all weekend. His teammate Franco Leidi didn't complete a lap with continued engine malidies.

Sami Selio was 5th in the Johnson 3.0 litre engined machine coming from mid pack and finishing with another solid performance and is now tied for 4th in the championship.

Frenchman Philippe Dessertenne was a dissapointed 8th after qualifying 3rd and struggling early on with a set-up from the start he said would be less than ideal. He now is 3rd in the title chase with 31 points.

Massimo Roggiero, Cappellini's teammate on the Zepter Team, finished 7th and is now 9th in the title run with 19 points. Local driver Rudy Mihaldinecz running in a 3rd boat from the Cappellini drove a respectible 8th in his first race run since 2000.

Portugese driver Duarte Benavente was 9th after starting last and arriving late after qualifying a strong 7th yesterday. Cipriano Lambri, 4th place finisher a week ago in Helsinki struggled here with a 10th while Thani Al Qamzi of the Emirates was the finial finisher in 11th position.

Rough driving proved rough fines by officials with Finnish driver Jari Honkala being disqualified after destroying two bouys and colliding with more than one boat on the circuit. Three other drivers were also fined. Laith Pharaon crashed heavily with Vincenzo Polli in the biggest accident of the day.

Francesco Cantando was running strongly early until his boat stuttered again and he finally went out again with fuel feed problems after pushing Cappellini hard early on.

The next round of the U.I.M. F1 World Championship tour will be in two weeks time in Cagliari, Sardinia for the 5th round of the series on the 7th of July.