VIJAYAWADA: Team Amaravati’s Jonas Andersson qualified for the final race by finishing fifth on the second day of Amaravati F1H2O Power Boat Racing Championship on Saturday. Preceding the third qualifying round where he finished the race in 45.22 seconds, he made the Qualifying round one (Q1) and Qualifying round two (Q2) with 46.58 seconds and 46.85 seconds, respectively.
In a first, Marit Stromoy, a woman driver from Germany participated and stood second during the final qualifying round. Her speed in the first three rounds stood at 44.72 km, 46. 38 km and 47.63 km, respectively. Shaun Torrente from the US ranked first, while Erik Strak from Abu Dhabi stood third.
Nine teams with 19 drivers raced in the three qualifying rounds. The first two were combined as one race. In the qualifying round, the driver has to finish two laps; each lap spanned 2.125 km. The ranking of the drivers depended on the time the laps were completed.
The day’s chief guests were CM’s wife N Bhuvaneswari, Irrigation Minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao, Tourism Minister Bhuma Akhila Priya and Vijayawada Mayor Koneru Sridhar.Tomorrow’s highly anticipated finals will see Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu presenting the awards the winners of the competition.Later, F1H2O organisers told TNIE that the average budget for organising an edition was around US $ one million.