Evolving the rules for 2009

Powerboat P1's teams discuss the subtle changes to the sport's sporting and technical regulations for 2009

During any motorsport off-season, there are three things on the minds of all team bosses – money to finance the racing, building a new boat for the new campaign and the sport's ever-changing regulations.

Powerboat P1, like any racing series, is a constantly evolving beast. For 2008, a host of new sporting and technical rulebook – particularly new power-to-weight ratios and engine performance monitoring – ensured that racing was closer, more hotly contested and more fairly adjudicated than ever. A subtle evolution of the sport’s regulations for 2009 aims to continue, but also to solidify, the significant progress made.

But how have the 2009 changes been received? And what change are they likely to mean for boat design and race strategy. We asked a pool of team bosses and drivers for their opinion.

“Powerboat P1’s rules have steadily improved year by year since 2004, and now the rules don’t really need big changes because they’re pretty perfect,” admits #44 Conam Yachts’ double SuperSport title-winning team boss and throttleman, Angelo Tedeschi.

That backs up the approach of Powerboat P1’s Racing and Event Director Andy Hindley. “We’ve tweaked the rules for 2009, but we’ve avoided a re-invention,” he explains. “What we’ve done is move it forward slowly. If we hadn’t, either we’d alienate some teams, or rule them out of competing, or both. That’s no good for anyone. What we have done is to tighten up some areas without making any current boats illegal. We’ve also expanded in some areas where people couldn’t go before, again without upsetting anyone.”

Two of the key elements that should keep racing as close in 2009 as it was in 2008 are shorter races and an altered points system. The new, shorter race lengths, in particular, have been particularly well received, especially by teams who struggled with reliability over the course of a weekend. Others think it is more beneficial for spectators – especially as Powerboat P1 targets live TV coverage.

“The move to slightly shorter races is okay, and good for spectators,” says #66 Cranefields Wine team boss Siegfried Grieve. “But the endurance race should have slightly longer distances between the buoys and not only more laps. The boats need different conditions. This is good, and must be kept.”

“The races definitely needed to be shorter,” says Tedeschi. “Especially the longer Endurance race on the Saturday. Races cannot be too long if we are live on TV.”

Slightly more radical is the new points structure, which has gone from awarding 100-80-60-50-40-30-20-10 down to eighth place, to a more even spread of 100-90-81-73-66-60-55 etc. down to 12th place. Discussion is mixed about the effect of this points distribution, as teams admit they’ll need to see how the racing evolves in 2009.

“There’s not a great difference between the top three places, so it encourages a consistent-placed finish,” says pilot James Sheppard of the Evolution class-winning #99 Fountain Worldwide 1st4boats.com team. “Strategy will be very different in 2009, with the main requirement to finish each race in the top three, and maybe not press for the wins."

Grieve and Tedeschi both agree that reliability is going to be a prime concern for budding champions in 2009. “Everything will focus on a smaller range of points,” says Grieve. “The smaller the gap between them, the smaller the chance to come up in the rankings.”

“It’s definitely a new and very different point system,” says Tedeschi. “For sure, finishing races will be most important, but we’ll need one year of experience to really understand it.”

As Hindley explains, shorter races combined with a closer points system should mean that the championship, as well as the races, will be more closely fought. More boats finishing races means more boats scoring points in a narrower range. Expect things to be very tight in the title chase come the 2009 season-finale!

“There are several reasons for the shorter races,” says Hindley. “Ultimately, it’s a better show if it’s shorter in time. Secondly, the reliability rate during 2008 wasn’t that great. By shortening the course slightly, we take some stress off the boats, automatically improving their performance and, at the same time, improving the show. If reliability goes up, and if 80 or 90 per cent of the boats are finishing both races on a weekend, then we can look at making the courses longer again.

“The points system from 2008 was okay, but the ability of one team to pull away very quickly was too high. The gaps were too big, and the excitement was lost. Now you have smaller gaps, so you will have to keep working all season before you know you are going to win. That can only be a good thing for excitement at events. Ultimately, the winners from 2008 would still be the winners if we used the new points system.”

In the SuperSport class, one of the key technical changes is the ability to use supercharged engines. This has caused some discussion as to whether this will encourage bigger, more powerful boats into the class that can reach the 85mph speed limit too quickly to be caught by the opposition. Expect much debate on this.

Equally, the 85mph speed limit for increased safety has been retained after much discussion, but a more flexible range of allowance for exceeding the limit is allowed. The period for exceeding the limit before a 60-second penalty is applied has been increased to 10 seconds, which should allow teams tactical scope to catch their rivals.

“A little improvement in speed would have been welcome,” says Tedeschi, who (ironically) spent much of this year’s SuperSport campaign defending his lead from the head of the pack. “The 10-second rule will make the work for the throttlemen even more difficult. Everyone will try and use those seconds to gain speed, especially if the seas are calm – which, on average is only one out of five races.”

Finally, everyone in both the SuperSport and Evolution classes will be keen to avoid missing any buoys, as the allowance to re-take a buoy in the Endurance race has been dropped. Three-minute penalties for all missed buoys are now mandatory.

“It’s a shame you cannot re-take a mark,” admits Sheppard, who is renowned for getting closer to buoys in corners than his rivals (always without missing them!). “It will make pilots less aggressive, as it’s best to give buoys a wide berth. Also, if boats misread the water, they could try to do thing as they attempt to take a mark that they perhaps really shouldn’t be trying.”

“Re-taking the buoys is – on many occasions – dangerous,” says Tedeschi. “But, at the same time, a three minute penalty for each offence seems a little too much. Maybe one minute would have been enough.”

“Penalties must be given for missing buoys and jump starts to compensate a possible advantage if somebody drove wrong intentionally,” says Grieve. “But penalties should never change the fair race situation and full result at the end of an event.”

As you can see, there’s always plenty of thought about how to build the right boat and how to fund it, but there’s easily as much discussion about the rules. But then motorsport regulations – like money and boat design – was ever thus…