Saturday, 10 June, VIESTE (Italy): Britain’s James Bushell powered to a superb start-to-finish victory in Runabout GP1 at the UIM-ABP Aquabike Grand Prix of the Mediterranean, with Portugal’s Christophe Agostinho finishing in second after holding off a late challenge from Sweden’s Lars Akerblom.

After the disappointment of breaking down last time out, Bushell mad no mistake this time, launching off from the start to immediately jump pole-sitter Yousef Al Abdulrazzaq and lead into the first turn from Agostinho, Abdulrazzaq and Akerblom.

The front four ran line astern for four laps when Abdulrazzaq suddenly slowed, stopped and was eventually towed off the circuit. 

Bushell was able to control the pace of his race from the front and despite easing off in the latter stages took his first win of the year by over 20 seconds. “Apart from a little issue at the start it was pretty straightforward,” said Bushell. “I knew I had a good lead and then I saw Yousef stop, and thought right let’s finish this off because I need the points. So I backed off a little to make sure I got to the end.”

Agostinho enjoyed his best result on the UIM-ABP tour with second and a third consecutive third place finish for Akerblom moved the Swede to the top of the championship standings on 48 points, with Abdulrazzaq and Bushell tied in second on 45.

New Zealand’s Carl Lampe was enjoying a strong outing and running in fourth when his Moto ended on lap 9 of 16 with a broken driveshaft, gifting fourth place to Estonia’s Anton Panratov, with Markus Schick and Patrice Pellier completing the top six.

For full classifications: www.aquabike.net/results

[For further information and to watch all the action from Moto 2 on Sunday streamed live; visit aquabike.net]