KIEV, Ukraine – 17th of July, 2012 – One of the world’s leading boat building enterprises, BABA Racing, in a surprise announcement is introducing their new generation UIM F1 H2O design set to be launched at this weekend’s Grand Prix of Ukraine on the 20th and 21st of July at the third round of the 2012 World Championship event.
Driving the boat and being the “launch customer” for the new design is French driver Philippe Tourre of the F1 Atlantic Team as the Parisian pilot searches for his first top five performance of the season this weekend.
Massimo Roggiero, the ex-F1 driver who is one of the world’s true innovators in raceboat design who’s boats are built just outside Milan, Italy having won two of the past five world titles, states that this new achieve is a safer as well as a faster hull.
“We have made this new generational boat not only with a higher but wider cockpit for quicker egress in case of an accident as well as making the cockpit glass thicker and more crash resistant,” said the three time Grand Prix winner.
“The cockpit glass has expanded from 6mm to 10mm thick with anti-crash film around the top. It’s very similar to the F1 automobiles with more than 10mm of carbon skin. We think we’ve also made the boat a little quicker to top it off as well. I think Philippe will be very pleased when he sits in this hull for the first time on the Kiev Sea.”
The BABA boats represent over one-third of the F1 starting grid with seven hulls being used by the various pilots at the last Grand Prix in Kazan one month ago. Both Finland’s Sami Selio’s two world titles in 2006 and 2010 were won in Massimo’s designed hulls.
The driver’s points leader Ahmed Al Hameli with Team Abu Dhabi holding down 35 points after the championships first two Grand Prix’s in Doha, Qatar and Kazan, Tatarstan in Russia drives a BABA boat.
It will be only a few days, Friday, the 20th of July, before we see first hand how this new “safer” and hopefully “slicker” Roggiero designed boat will be either a masterpiece or not. The evolution of the UIM F1 H2O World Championship continues to develop at an ever more rapid rate year after year.
You can follow both Friday’s qualifying and Saturday’s Grand Prix both beginning locally at 18:00 and 15:00 GMT and 11:00 EDT on the East Coast of North America by going to the official website of the UIM F1 H2O World Championship at www.f1h2o.com.
