CAPPELLINI TAKES 1 ST VICTORY AT CAGLIARI!!
JONES 2ND ; GILLMAN, LEPPALA PENALIZED!

Cagliari, Italy, May 10: Guido Cappellini, the 4-time World Champion loaded with talent, needed a little luck, as he took the first race of the 1998 UIM F1 World Championship here in Sardinia, passing World Champion Scott Gillman 3 laps from the end to take the early lead in the battle for the World Title.

The race took a dramatic twist right from the start when both Gillman, starting from the 2 nd spot and Finland's Pertti Leppala in the 3rd, jumped the lights and were docked one lap by the UIM officials. Leppala led the first 3 laps before Gillman made a move around the native of Helsinki and went to the front of the field of 20 boats.

Cappellini, who came off the dock slowly, struggled to get up front with both Argentinian Carlos Maidana and Sweden's Goran Karlof ahead and holding off the native of Como, Italy who had started from the pole. Karlof's luck ran out just 3 laps into the event when his engine went quiet and Maidana didn't finish after his boat was taking on water midway through the event.

As the race settled into the first 10 laps of the 40 lap event, it was Gillman, Cappellini, Leppala, Maidana, Jonathan Jones and Francesco Cantando in the top 6. By lap 20, Gillman held a 17.77 second lead on Cappellini, knowing he had to lap the field in order to win because of his penalty. His strong run was dashed when the yellow flag came out on lap 21 closing up the field and Cappellini was ready to pounce on his opportunity with the green flag with 15 laps to go.

On the restart, Gillman continued to hold off Cappellini, but the Italian knew he didn't have push to win the event, stayed back and with 3 laps left Cappellini charged past Gillman, after the American's boat reared up and cut off the fuel supply just long enough for the engine to die the retstart, giving the Italian a chance to tour home for a well deserved victory.

Jonathan Jones, who was in the mix for most of the day, came home 2 nd after both Gillman and Leppala were docked a lap, while Gillman was awarded 3 rd overall and Leppala 4 th . Italian Fabrizio Bocca was 5 th , Andy Elliott 6 th after starting 20 th , Massimo Roggiero 7 th , Cipriano Lambri 8 th , Javier Amtmann 9 th and Russian Andrej Bernitsine 10 th

The next race on the UIM F1 World Championship is the 24 th of May in St. Petersburg, Russia. Round #2 of the 1998 season.

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