Cagliari, Sunday May 31st - The World Championship’s return to Cagliari after a hiatus of over two decades provided one of the sport’s most memorable spectacles to date, with five drivers dramatically barrel rolling out of the race amidst choppy conditions and intense rivalries. The barrel rolls in quick succession of Rusty Wyatt and Shaun Torrente meant two of this season’s favourites finished pointless, throwing this year’s championship wide open and putting F1H2O’s youngest driver, Stefan Arand, at the top of the table following a masterful display that secured him the win.

The Race

With only minutes to go before the scheduled start of the race, the uptick of a sharp westerly wind meant a decision was made by the Race Director to opt for a rolling start, meaning the Grand Prix lacked the traditional sprint start.

The rolling start created a difficult dynamic of its own for the drivers, who were suddenly given the Green Flag and started the race bunched up and within touching distance of each other. The pressure was therefore immediately on for Shaun Torrente in pole position, facing the double threat of Sharjah Team’s Rusty Wyatt and Stefan Arand both creeping up on him.

That pressure forced a rare error from the current World Champion, who took Turn 3 too tightly in the race’s first lap, colliding with and puncturing the buoy, but leaving his Victory Team DAC boat unscathed. This allowed Wyatt to make the overtake and take the lead, but the Canadian’s joy was to be short-lived.

Just seconds after Torrente collided with the Turn 3 buoy, another former World Champion had trouble taking the turn, as Sami Selio turned too tightly for the choppy conditions, sending him flying into a barrel roll and out of the race. With a lap yet to be completed, the Yellow Flag forced the drivers back into their starting grid order, putting Torrente back in front.

With Selio’s boat towed away and the punctured buoy replaced, racing got back underway with 37 laps still to play for. The battle was immediately back on at the front with Wyatt desperate to overtake Torrente having had his first taste of leading the race taken from him. However, this battle was to be self-destructive for both drivers in dramatic fashion.

As soon as the Green Flag flew, Wyatt took Torrente from the outside on Turn 2 and briefly took the first place, only for Torrente to retake his position on Turn 3 from the inside. With both drivers pushing themselves to the limit, a dramatic double accident followed. First, Wyatt barrel rolled after taking the race course’s single right turn too tightly, and just as his dramatic crash was registering, Torrente suffered a barrel roll of his own at Turn 5 after he too took a turn too sharply, ending both their afternoons early and throwing open the contention for the Grand Prix’s top spots to the rest of the pack.

Arand now found himself in the lead as the Green Flag fluttered, with 30 laps still remaining. The Estonian seemed unperturbed by his teammate’s dramatic exit from the race, displaying no timidity of his own and flying ahead, establishing a lead of 4.392 seconds after the first full lap following the latest Yellow Flag.

The real battle therefore took place behind him, with the next three drivers separated by just a couple of seconds, and Grant Trask using the restart to make an overtake on Marszalek to take third place, with Peter Morin squeezed between the two Sharjah Team drivers in second place.

More racing drama was taking place further down the pack, as former World Champion Jonas Andersson was seeking to make his way up the pack after an uncharacteristically poor performance in qualifying that saw him start in tenth. A wide line on Turn 5 allowed both Ben Jelf and Andersson to pass Brent Dillard, with Andersson overtaking Jelf soon after. The Swede then set his sights on Alberto Comparato for the fifth place, putting in a best race lap time of 47.369 seconds in the process, and reducing the gap between himself and the Italian to 1.422 seconds by lap 21.

But Andersson’s flying form was short lived, as the Team Abu Dhabi driver started slowing, allowing Jelf to take back his position in lap 22 and reignite the battle between the two drivers.

As they battled it out midway through the race, Arand continued to extend his lead, putting down the race’s best lap at 47.001 seconds on lap 27, increasing the gap between Morin in second place to 8.366 seconds in the process. Meanwhile Andersson’s slowed pace cost him the position he had taken from Dillard, who overtook Andersson on lap 28.

Perhaps overexcited by his overtake of former World Champion Andersson, Dillard replicated the mistake already made by three drivers, pushing too hard on a turn in lap 30 and barrel rolling out of the race in the same place that ended Wyatt’s afternoon early. The Yellow Flag returned yet again.

Arand’s hard work in establishing such a dominant lead was therefore cruelly extinguished as the remaining drivers bunched up, with Morin in second and Trask in third now breathing down the Estonian’s neck. The Green Flag returned, signaling a remaining ten laps of racing, and Arand flew away.

Less alert to the return of the Green Flag was Morin, who was immediately overtaken by Trask and Marszalek to push the Frenchman out of the podium places. Marszalek’s gain was almost blown away when his boat jumped into the air, a roll looking imminent, but the Pole showed his experience and skill in getting the boat under control and keeping himself in the race.

Morin was clearly feeling the pressure to take back the second-place position he had held for most of the race, but that pressure pushed him too hard amidst the choppy conditions and he became the third victim to a barrel roll on Turn 4, and the fIfth driver to roll out of the race. Morin’s early exit marked a miserable end to the weekend for China CTIC Team, with both their boats ending up towed out the water having taken to the air.

With the course still being cleared from Morin’s crash, over 45 minutes of racing time had elapsed, meaning the race came to a close under a Yellow Flag. Arand’s excellent race management paid off with a second Grand Prix victory in a row, having won the closing Grand Prix of the 2025 season in Sharjah. His Team Manager, and the last driver to win a Grand Prix in Cagliari at the last edition in 2004, Scott Gillman was deeply impressed by his young driver’s performance, declaring: “Stefan in the rough waters is one of the toughest [to beat]. So Stefan is going to be a tough, tough contender for the title”

Trask gave Gillman another reason to be happy, coming second and so giving the Sharjah Team a one-two finish. Marszalek claimed the third podium place. Despite pressure from Jelf, Comparato was able to maintain his position to finish fourth, with Jelf in fifth. Andersson’s flash of pace proved just that – a flash – and insufficient to see him rise the ranks, with the Swede finishing in sixth.

Alec Weckstrom came in seventh, with Team Abu Dhabi’s Erik Stark able to gain a few positions following his start at the back of the pack due to an engine change after qualifiers. The Swede came in eighth, followed by Maverick Racing duo Alexandre Bourgeot and Cédric Deguisne finishing out the top ten, and Rashed Al Qemzi the last of the drivers to cross the finish line in eleventh.

Retirements during the race for Duarte Benavente and Marit Stromoy, alongside the five dramatic barrel rolls, meant that just eleven of the eighteen drivers who lined up at the beginning of the race made it to the end, establishing Cagliari as amongst the most difficult racing circuits on its big return to the F1H2O World Championship.