With claps of thunder resonating off the surrounding mountains and fork lightning grabbing people’s attentions, it was always going to be a tough day at the Campione d’Italia Grand Prix.
This mornings ‘Free Practice’ sessions had to be moved to the early afternoon following a combination of a wind swept course coupled with a lack of ambulance cover.
In the end the race organisers were only able to run ‘Free Practice’ for those drivers picked at random to form Group A and ‘Free Practice’ Group B made up of the remaining drivers.
Quickest in Group A was Stefan Hagin, who had finally found the correct balance to his new Molgaard hull. “I’m really happy with the way I drove today” said the young German driver. “It didn’t help that we had to come off the water after only fifteen minutes because of the rain storm that certainly upset my rhythm. I think the course was also shorter when we went back out, it certainly was a different one when the drivers in Group B went out, and so it’s impossible to compare our times.”
No rain delays for Group B, who had blue sky and sunshine for their session. Topping the time sheets was the Portuguese driver Duarte Benavente, who was just two hundredth of a second quicker than Rupp Temper. “That was a tough session because the water was really rough” said Benavente, who was racing a Moore hull that he had only recently acquired from Mette Bjerknaes. “I really like racing in the UIM F2 World Championship, it’s such a great environment to compete in and as long as the F2 calendar doesn’t conflict with the F1H2O one then I will continue racing the entire F2 season.”
