Under a burning sun and a clear sky the powerpole took place in the waters between Valletta and Sliema. World’s finest powerboat pilots raced to determine their starting position for the Sprint race on Saturday and the Endurance race on Sunday. The race proved to be very exciting because Seagull arrived just today and work on the Ukrainian Spirit was still going on.
As it turned out, Ukrainian Spirit unfortunately never made it to the startline despite the hard work to get the Evolution Class powerboat up and running. That left us with 6 Evolution and 7 Supersport powerboats all racing to get the best position. In Supersport Team 26 (UK) had the fastest run just 1.02 seconds faster than Spirit of Belgium (B). The Belgian team took over 2 seconds on the third team Baia Attolini (I). Fourth was Big Sergio (I) followed closely by Karelpiu (I) at just 2/100 of a second. Jolly Drive (I) ended up sixth and Seagull (UA) finished last more than 11 seconds slower than Team 26.
In Evolution we also saw lap times that came very close. Fastest boat on the track today was the Outerlimits SNAV-KITON (I) powerboat. Furnibo (B) came second at just 0.36 of a second and third was Metamarine Foresti Suardi (I) over more than 4 seconds slower dan Furnibo. Fourth was Cranefields Wine (D) before Lucas Oil (SE). Carconnex (B) withdrew earlier from the competition, Ukrainian Spirit (UA) and surprisingly Silverline (K) did not start.
These are the cards to play with. The Sprint race on Saturday and the Endurance race on Sunday cover the same course and will be held in open sea. The wind will pick up tomorrow and keeping that in mind things could get rough.
