The Fifty-Fifty - a Hungarian-designed twin-masted catamaran - broke its own course record of 7 hours 13 minutes 57 seconds, set in 2014, by 36 seconds.Continue reading
Italian Giuseppe Rossi won the F-500 European Powerboat Championship on Sunday in Dunaújváros, Attila Havas finished second, and Ferenc Csákó eighth. The GT15 category was won by Estonia and the GT30 by Sweden.
The F-500 category was the most anticipated, with Attila Havas winning both races on Saturday, while his biggest rivals – Estonian Erko Aabrams, the world points leader, Slovakian Marián Jung, and Italian Giuseppe Rossi – all made mistakes.
In Sunday’s third race, although he led for four laps, his engine failed and he was forced to stop. Ferenc Csákó’s boat also slowed down, but he managed to finish and score valuable points.
In the fourth and decisive race, Havas got stuck at the start and although he set a very fast pace, he had no chance to catch up with the leaders, and Csákó’s boat stopped on the second lap. Rossi and Aabrams battled it out for the race win, but the Italian was the first to go down and became this year’s European F-500 champion.
In the GT15 category, which is mainly for junior training, the three young Hungarian competitors, Raven Jelinek, Márkó Mihaldinecz, and Lőrinc Riskó, were tasked with acquiring routine. The category title was won by Estonian Hendriks Arula with three race wins.
In the GT30 category, three Hungarian drivers were also cheered on by the Kikötői-öböl crowd. Andor Fűke was expecting the continuation on Sunday from third place, but in the end, he did not manage to win the bronze medal, as Péter Sándor Jr. was unable to continue racing on Sunday due to an engine failure. In this category, too, there was a Nordic success: Sweden’s Hilmer Wiberg became European Champion with a 100% performance.
With extremely low water levels and a very narrow course, 4-4 races were held for all three categories over the weekend, with the top three results being declared the winners. The F-500s completed ten laps per race on an 1850m track. GT15 and GT30 raced on an 850-meter track, with the smaller category having to complete eight laps in one race and the larger category 20 laps.
Péter Sándor, President of the Hungarian Motorized Water Sports Association, the organizer of the event, told MTI that 37 competitors from 12 European nations competed in the three categories. He stressed that it was a great pleasure for the organizers that thousands of spectators watched the races from the shores of Kikötői Bay, with many coming from further afield.
He recalled that the Champions of the Future program, which started five years ago, has helped to develop the drivers who are now moving up to the GT15 category.
Featured image via Programturizmus.hu’s Facebook page