CAPPELLINI CRUSHES FIELD AT HOME GRAND PRIX !
EMIRATES TEAM WILL START AL QAMZI AND GILLMAN 2-3

COMO, Italy – (15th of July, 2006) – Hometown hero Guido Cappellini of the Tamoil Team took the rest of the field to school grabbing the pole by over 2 seconds and picking up his first number one in six races with a crushing  47.4 second lap at over 155 kph on the treacherous 8 pin circuit on lovely Lake Como for tomorrow’s 10th Annual Grand Prix of Italy.

“We were ready today to get things done correctly on my lake,” stated Guido. “Tomorrow we hope to achieve the same success right from the start but it should be another struggle with the long race and the high temperatures.”

Chasing him will be a fantastic qualifying performance by young Thani Al Qamzi who came in with a 49.25 second time and a 149 kph lap for his best ever result finishing 3/10’s of a second ahead of his teammate three time World Champion Scott Gilllman of Los Angeles, California who will start 3rd after doing a 49.55 second tour as he looks for his first ever Como victory.

Massimo Roggiero of nearby Varese, Italy put in another great effort as he will be starting a fine 4th with a 51.68 second lap in his BABA built boat. His teammate on the Qatar Racing Team Jay Price of New Orleans, Louisiana will begin 8th on the dock after a quality effort of a 52.08 second lap in only his 4th ever F1 race.

Finnish star Sami Selio was hoping for better things until his engine broke in his opening lap of the two lap “shootout” for pole position and will settle for 5th. Guido Cappellini’s teammate on the Tamoil Team Ivan Brigada also had his engine go up in smoke on his first turn of his first lap and will start 6th.

Just missing the top-6 was rookie Swedish Jonas Andersson who pushed hard to reach a shot at pole but failed to get a clear lap in the final moments of qualifying.  Australian David Trask improved to 9th place with a 52,11 on the XPV Racing homebuilt boat.

Rounding out the top 10 with his best qualifying effort ever was French driver Philippe Chiappe with a 52.22 and seven spots of his more experienced teammate Philippe Dessertenne who is going to try to push hard from 17th.

Other surprises in qualifying were a lowly 12th by Fabio Comparato of the Comparato Raing effort and 15th by two time podium finisher Francesco Cantando of the Singha Team who started 21st here in 2005 and finished 4th. He’ll be hoping to do the same senario again.

Tomorrow’s 10th Annual Grand Prix of Italy will start at 15:00 local Central European Standard Time and 9:00 Eastern Daylight time in North America.

For additional information, interviews or video footage please contact:

Philippe Stiernon
Press Officer
Philippe@f1boat.com