CAPPELLINI WINS 3RD RACE OF SEASON IN CORFU!
GILLMAN'S CRASH OPENS DOOR FOR THE ITALIAN!

CORFU, GREECE ,(July12th)- American Scott Gillman looked like he had the 3rd Annual Grand Prix of Corfu in his back pocket, but on the next to last tour of the scheduled 55 lap event, the defending World Champion barrel rolled in turn one and lost his points lead in the U.I.M. F1 World Championship at the same time.

Gillman, who started 3rd on the dock, took advantage of the pole sitter Guido Cappellini stalling at the green light and took off after the leader Jonathan Jones of Cardigan, Wales while Cappellini battled forward from the back of the field. The Italian who had won this race in 1996, started closing on the front runners and moved into the 5th spot by the 4th lap.

Jones meanwhile, jumped into a 3 second lead after Cappellini s slow start and from his 2nd starting position led the field for the first 5 laps before his engine quit handing the lead to the American. Gillman then held court building his margin to as many as 13 seconds before the yellow flag came out on the 26th lap closing the field.

Gillman on the re-start pulled away from Cappellini who was having balancing problems with his DAC hull and led by more than 5 seconds before barrel rolling with less than 4 kilometers to go to the flag. The many time World Champion cruised to the finish to capture his 3rd win of the season and now owns 1st place in the World Championship with 60 points.

Pertti Leppala of Helsinki, Finland battled his way up to 2nd after chasing Gillman most of the way before being passed by Cappellini on the 25th lap. Massimo Roggiero, teammate of Cappellini on the DAC Racing team finished 3rd and reached the podium for the first time in 1998. Fabrizio Bocca of the Rainbow Racing team was 4th despite hitting a bouy and being docked a lap, while Frenchman Phillipe Dessertenne was 5th.

The rest of the top ten looked like this; Cipriano Lambri of Italy was 6th, Andy Elliott of Great Britian was 7th, Thomas Ericsson of Sweden was 8th, Sami Selio of Finland 9th and Francesco Cantando 10th.

Guido Cappellini leads the World Championship with 60 pts, Scott Gillman is 2nd with 47, Jonathan Jones of Great Britian 3rd with 42 and Goran Karlof of Sweden 4th with 32. The next round of the 1998 U.I.M. F1 World Championship will be in Stresa, Italy on Sunday, July 26th.

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