GILLMAN WINS AFTER LEPPALA `S DISQUALIFICATION !
CANTANDO 2 ND ; DESSERTENNE 3 RD IN ACTION FILLED EVENT!

May 24th St Petersburg, Russia - In what many thought would be Finland's Pertti Leppala's first career victory, turned out to be defending World Champion Scott Gillman `s 1st of the season at the Grand Prix of Europe, the 2nd round of the UIM F1 World Championship event for 1998.

Close to 100,000 fans turned out on a cold, wind swept day expecting to see 4-time World Champion Guido Cappellini win his 2nd straight of the year after taking the pole by almost a second over Welshman Jonathan Jones. Cappellini, who reeled off a time of 36.09 seconds around the 2 kilometer circuit, led from the start and built up a 13 second lead over 2nd place driver Pertti Leppala in his Chesterfield DAC by lap 15. In chase was Jones, 15 seconds further back, with American Gillman in 4th and Swedish pilot Goran Karlof rounding out the top 5.

Already missing from the race was early 4th place driver Massimo Roggiero of Italy and now Jones who lost a small gasket in his engine falling out of 3rd. The race continued to take a cruel twist for the leaders as Cappellini then slowed and stopped between turns 1 and 2 on the 23rd lap, his day ended with a prop shaft broken.

Lap 39 turned out to be the key tour of the race as Leppala took out the bouy in turn 3, forcing the race to be stopped and the bouy replaced. On the restart, 5 boats headed into turn 1 and only 2 came out without damage as a massive 3 boat pileup between Argentina `s Carlos Maidana, Karlof and England's Andy Elliott saw all three taken out of the event with each driver losing precious championship points. From that point on, Leppala was able to hold off Gillman by 3 second's to the end, but Leppala was disqualified by the officals and Gillman was the surprise winner.

"Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good and on this day I was lucky ", stated the World Champion from Basalt, Colorado. "I feel sorry for Pertti, but we `ll take the win, we faught hard for this result."

Young Italian Francesco Cantando finished afine 2nd in his Mercury powered DAC after qualifying 5th. Frenchman Philippe Dessertenne reached the top 3 for the first time in his career charging up from his 9th place starting position. Swede Thomas Ericsson had his best result in two season `s with a 4th, while Hungarian pilot Rudy Mihaldinnez was 5th; Cipriano Lambri of Italy was 6th; Russian Victor Kounitch was 7th and Franco Leidi of Italy was the final boat running in 8th position.

The 3rd round of the UIM F1 World Championship will be held on June 7th in Chalon sur Saône, France.

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