LEPPALA WINS 1ST GRAND PRIX IN RUSSIA!
CAPPELLINI'S 3RD GIVES HIM CHAMPIONSHIP LEAD!

MOSCOW, RUSSIA (August 23 rd )-The bad luck season for Finland's Pertti Leppala came quickly to an end today when he battled his way to the front of the 19 boat field to win the 8 th Round of the U.I.M. F1 World Championship on the Moscow River at the Grand Prix of Russia.

Leppala, who thought he had won in St. Petersburg, Russia in May, only to be disqualified, took advantage of race leader America's Scott Gillman's incident in a crash with Carlos Maidana on the 21 st lap and moved in front to stay winning the 61 lap race in a time of 50:41.73 seconds to capture his first victory in his 3 rd full season on the U.I.M. F1 World Championship tour.

Three drivers, all ex-World Champions, Jonathan Jones of Wales, Guido Cappellini of Italy and Scott Gillman of Basalt, Colorado all were within 5 points of each other going into the start of the race. After Gillman's exit, Jones took up the charge for the top 2, closing in and finally passing Guido Cappellini and hoping to stay in the event and pick up valueable championship points. Instead, as Jones got around Cappellini, he and the Italian touched sponsons and eventually the hole in the 3-time World Champions boat put an end to his day when water got into his Mercury engine and he fell silent with just 10 laps to go.

Cappellini took advantage, now knowing his two rivals for the World Championship were now out of the event with one race to go in the season, cruised home to 3 rd , picking up 12 points and now has an 9 point lead on Jones, 81-72.

While Gillman was having his problems, his teammate, Fabrizzio Bocca on the Markers-Belco-Avia team, was moving up having his best day of the season, finally finishing just 4.06 seconds behind Lepalla while holding off a charging Cappellini.

Cappellini's teammate, Masssimo Roggiero dispite being docked 2 laps for taking out a turn bouy ran a fine 4 th place at the end while Hungarian driver Rudy Mihaldenez had his 3 rd 5 th place finish of the season in his Russian built boat.

England's Andy Elliott starting 8 th finished 6 th , while Italy's Franco Leidi was 7 th after starting 17 th . France's Franck Revert has his best day in F1 with the Fuchs team, taking 8 th while Russian Andrey Bernitsyne came home 9 th in the Texaco team machine. Rounding out the top 10 was Swede Goran Karlof, who slowed at the end after being up as high as 3 rd at one time.

With Cappellini's 3 rd place, the championship now has him in a situation for him to reach his 5th World Title in 6 years with his 9 point margin 81 to 72 to Jones, while now having a 14 point advantage on the defending champion Scott Gillman.

The final round of the 1998 U.I.M. F1 World Championship will take place the first week of December in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

Email: floridahotshot@aol.com