CAPPELLINI CAPTURES 50TH CAREER WIN IN SHARJAH
SELIO’S 2ND GIVES HIM RUNNER-UP IN CHAMPIONSHIP!

SHARJAH, United Arab Emirates – 16th of December, 2005 – Italian Guido Cappellini played a patient game and moved ahead on the 2nd restart to take his 50th career victory and his 4th in the six rounds of the 2005 U.I.M. F1 World Championship for power boating at the 6th Annual Grand Prix of Sharjah on the Khalid Lagoon in front of thousands of race fans in downtown Sharjah.

Cappellini, who started 6th off the dock after being disqualified in yesterdays shootout for pole position, pushed fastest qualifier Scott Gillman of the Emirates Team for the first 3rd of the race until the native of Como jumped the American at the restart and passed both he and Finnish driver Sami Selio on the restart to take the lead and never look back on the 50 lap event.

“It was a nice way to wrap up the season,” stated the Tamoil driver. “We will use this as a spring board to launch us into 2006 and a 10th title as well as enjoy the 50th career win at the same time tonight.”

Sami Selio was pushing Cappellini as hard as he could dropping back as far as 7 seconds before reeling him back in with just 8 laps to go to make it a race again. He finished 2.11 seconds behind at the end and took his 4th podium of the season and took 2nd position in the championship with 49.5 total points to Cappellini’s 92 at seasons end.

“I pushed as hard has I could but when I realized the Philippe Dessertenne had dropped out with a couple of laps to go. I quit pushing Guido and decided it was more important to take 2nd in the championship,” stated Selio. “This will help us in preparing both on the water and off for 2006.”

Francesco Cantando of the Singha Team, who won this race back in 2000, came the farthest of any driver in one day from breaking an engine in the morning warm-up to taking his 32nd career podium by late afternoon with a 3rd place finish 17.60 behind the leader. His win in Singapore and today gave him 2 podiums on the season and 7th in the championship with 32 points.

Italian Fabio Comparato who started 7th came home 4th and with this result ends the season with 4 top 5 finishes along with a podium at the Grand Prix of Portugal for 39.5 points and 4th in the championship at seasons end.

Pole sitter Scott Gillman, the two time defending champion of this event led from the pole early and was controlling the race only to have two restarts slow his progress. The 2nd restart he misjudged and was immediately passed by Cappellini and Selio and quickly dropped from 1st to 3rd in an instant. After a brief battle with Cantando he pushed himself again forward and came within 5 seconds of leader Cappellini when he started to slow down and was no longer in contention for a podium finish and took 5th place at days end and a lap down. Gillman scored 7 points enough to take 3rd in the championship with 42 and a win in Abu Dhabi for the season.

Teammate on the Emirates Team Thani Al Qamzi was 6th just behind Gillman after starting 8th. Julius Leysen of Belgium, teammate of Selio, came home 7th after starting 12th for his 3rd race in the last four in the points.

German driver Fabian Kalsow took “Rookie of the Year” honors with an 8th place and 6 points on the season as team mate of Guido Cappellini on the Tamoil F1 Team picking up points in his last two straight races he’s started.

Mohammed Al Ali, challenger to Kalsow for rookie honors finished just behind with a 9th place in the Rainbow Racing effort for the Qatar native.

Taking the final points of the day was Bob Trask of Australia in the XPV Racing effort ending a year of frustration with his first world championship points.

Bitterly disappointed was French driver Philippe Dessertenne in the Ligier Sports effort who was up to fourth and looking for a chance for 2nd in the championship dropped out with just two laps to go in the event and 5th overall in the title with 39 points at days end.

Laith Pharaon of Saudi Arabia discovered he had a broken boat and elected not to start his unfamiliar back-up hull finishing 6th in the title with 32.5 points at seasons end.

So the 2005 season comes to a close with Guido Cappellini not only taking his record setting 9th World Championship and his 50th career victory while winning 4 of 6 of the seasons races. Now the question will be if Cappellini reaches his goal of 10 titles and then retires after this accomplishment. You can believe that 20+ drivers will be pushing hard to see he doesn’t reach his goal starting the 2006 season in Doha, Qatar.

For additional information, interviews or video footage please contact:

Philippe Stiernon
Press Officer
Philippe@f1boat.com