GT Academy winner Lucas Ordonez and his team-mate Sara Price have secured a first win in the E1 Series powerboat championship to put themselves firmly into title contention ahead of the final round.
A late entry to the championship, the Will Smith-owned Westbrook Racing team missed the first round in Jeddah, but results over the following three events in Venice, Puerto Banus, and Monaco have been strong.
In fact the duo has been the only squad to make the final in all three of the rounds, repeating the feat in the Lake Como event this weekend courtesy of a pair of second-place finishes in the semi-finals from both pilots.
Ordonez was the first to race in the final — which consists of two races, with the positions aggregated to decide the overall winner — and lined up second behind Team Aoki’s Saud Ahmed on the outfit’s debut final appearance of the season.
The Westbrook “Racebird” took the lead almost the moment the flag dropped though, streaking ahead of the Aoki boat into the first turn on the five-lap race. From there Ordonez never looked back, building his advantage lap on lap before taking the “Long Lap” — a required additional-distance joker lap — on the final pass.
That gave Westbrook its first finals race victory of the season but there was still another race to go, and the pole-sitting Team Brady boat could clinch the title with a top-four finish. While Price made a great start to get herself up to third through a wide first turn, Brady’s Emma Kimilainen had a nightmare and collected one of the marker buoys to pick up significant damage to the left-side foil.
With Team Rafa’s Tom Chiappe romping to the win, Price came home in second to give Westbrook the overall victory — in front of a delighted Will Smith, who was attending the race. Team Brady could only place fifth, meaning that it leads Team Westbrook by just 11 points going into the final race of the season.
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