Powerboat P1 keen for rules stability

Monday 04 August 2008

The #99 Fountain Worldwide and #69 Honeyparty.com boats cut it close in Tunisia

Powerboat P1 Racing and Event Director Andy Hindley has said that the championship’s regulations are unlikely to change significantly in the next few years, helping current teams plan for the future and encouraging new teams and manufacturers into the sport with a stable rulebook.

The Powerboat P1 championship has seen the introduction of key new regulations for 2008 – in particular, a fixed power-to-weight ratio for both the Evolution and SuperSport class which has been designed to keep the competition close. Powerboat P1 organisers have also tightened up on ensuring the rules are more closely monitored with mandatory sensors to monitor engine performance.

“We’ve got to be very careful that we don’t have a step change in the design of the boats,” Hindley said in an interview with PowerboatP1.com. “All the teams work very hard and take a lot of time to work on and develop the boats through the year, and we don’t want to introduce rules that mean they have to throw all that away.

“We’ve made sure that we involve all the teams and hull and engine manufacturers in the decisions. Powerboat P1 is an opportunity for them to show off their products and develop new technology, and you don’t want to change things that prevent them from being able to do that.

“You definitely don’t want massive change – you just want to tweak it so that it’s a closer playing field. That means not substantially changing the setup of the boats, but it does mean more careful monitoring and telemetry. It’s about policing what we’ve got really hard.”

Hindley has also been encouraged by how the quality of racing has improved this year, but said that he would like to see an improvement in reliability to ensure that this continues from the first few laps, right through to the chequered flag.

“The quality of racing has got much better this year,” he said. “The first four or five laps in Tunisia were amazingly close between the top boats. It’s just the longevity of performance at the higher end that is letting them down. Once reliability is sorted, the quality of the teams means we’ll have some really close racing through the whole race.”

To read more about Andy Hindley's background and his views on Powerboat P1's future, read our exclusive interview here.