Marit finished 8th in Evian
Publisert
The difficult water conditions of Evian made a factor also this year for the drivers and teams in the F1 H2O World Championship. When the green flag finally dropped the conditions were good enough to give the crowd a great race. Marit had a good drive, but didn't seem to have the engine power to fight all the way in the top.
The Grand Prix of Evian started as a long waiting game as the event was on hold for two days due to bad weather. Sunday the wind dropped and the teams were very busy as everything was done in one day.
In free practice the conditions were quite good on the Geneva Lake. Marit set 5th best time and was quite happy with the performance of the boat, although she was complaining a bit with the acceleration. With the experience from Portimao where the engine seized seven laps into the Grand Prix, the team was very careful with the engine settings. The goal was quite clear; to survive the heavy waterconditions of Evian, not break the engine with the bad fuel and get some championship points.
Due to the weather, the qualifying format was changed into 1 hour of timed trials with all boats inside. During this hour the conditions varied a lot and at one point the waterconditions slowed everyone up. Marit set 7th best time, but was only 0,2 behind Chiappe that was in 2nd spot. A very exiting qualifying session with drivers pushing from start to finish.
The Grand Prix was run in front of thousands of spectators in the lovely city of Evian. Alex Carella led from start to finish, but behind him there were many battles for positions. After a difficult first half of the race were Marit dropped a few position one driver barrel rolled. In the restart Marit did a good move and jumped three positions. For the rest of the race she was chasing behind Erik Stark for the reminder of the race and finished 8th. - All in all it was a fun race to drive. We were a bit too safe on the setup and I didn't have the enginepower I needed for gain more positions, said Marit after the race.
The boat really came to life after the fuel load dropped and the last 10 laps Marit was very fast. So fast that she set 2nd best laptime of the race. The team will now prepare for the upcoming race in Harbin, China in five weeks.
Pictures by F1H2O