Marseille ready for Powerboat P1 action

Friday 16 May 2008

The scenic city of Marseille in France is gearing up for Powerboat P1's arrival

Powerboat P1’s successful 2008 season-opening Italian Grand Prix of the Sea in San Benedetto del Tronto in Italy may still be fresh in the mind for the sport’s fans, but most of the teams are now much more focused on the upcoming Marseille Grand Prix on May 23-25.

The city authorities and the Federation Francaise Motonautique and the Motor Yacht Club de la Cote D’Azur have been busy preparing for the event in recent days. But – given the amount of technical teething problems that teams in the Evolution and SuperSport class seemed to suffer in the opening Endurance and Sprint races of the year in Italy – we’re hearing that there have been plenty of furrowed brows during the course of this week as engineers and mechanics try to fix the glitches. We should expect plenty of late-night ‘bags under the eyes’ as teams arrive in Marseille.

In the Evolution class, the #77 Lucas Oil team of pilot Shelley Jory and throttleman Nigel Hook seemed to have the most trouble-free weekend, as indicated by their healthy lead at the top of the standings. But they’ll be looking to see where they can catch the #99 Fountain Worldwide boat of pilot James Sheppard and throttleman Craig Wilson, who were clearly quickest on the water, and would have been leading the way into France had it not been for their provisional 100-point penalty.

The rest of the field – particularly leading teams like the #10 Fantastic 1 Cigarette Racing Team Europe outfit, the #88 Kiton Outerlimits OSG Racing squad and the #69 Honeyparty.com crew – will be keen to solve the problems that blighted their Italian weekend so they can come back fighting in France.

In the SuperSport class things are proving so closely contested that everyone will be looking to gain that crucial advantage that will allow them to move ahead of their rivals. The #07 VoomVoom.com team, the #44 Conam Yachts crew and the #59 Saho Offshore Rana’s outfit lead the way in the incredibly tight points race, but the #38 Baia High Performance boat, the #11 Sunseeker Challenger team, the #47 Silverline Buzzi Bullet crew and the #08 Phoenix 8 squad are all perfectly poised to make big headway in the title fight if they can find the magic mix, or if one of the leading teams suffers a technical problem in France.

Remember to check our 2008 Season section for the definitive guide to where to stay and what to do at the event, while we’ll be behind the scenes from the build-up of the event next week, so stay tuned to PowerboatP1.com for all the latest news…