Friday, June 21: The morning’s on-course action at the Regione Sardegna Grand Prix of Italy in Olbia was rounded off by 20-minute qualifying sessions for the non-contracted or supported riders in both the Ski Division GP1 and Runabout GP1 categories.

Frenchman Jeremy Poret left it late in the session to pip Belgian Quinten Bossche to the fastest lap in the Ski Division GP1 stint and Estonia’s Mattias Siimann left it until his seventh lap to overhaul the opening run set by American legend Dustin Farthing to top the Runabout GP1 session by 1.776 seconds.

Thirty-one riders took part in the Ski Division GP1 session with the best lap counting towards the all-important qualifying. Jeremy Poret was the first racer to card a run of 1min 45.926sec and that lap stood tall at the top of the leader board until the session was stopped and then restarted after course buoys had been damaged.

Austrian Kevin Reiterer opened his account after the restart with a run of 1min 49.231sec but that lap was quickly surpassed by a flier of 1min 44.588sec by runaway championship leader Quinten Bossche. Valentin Dardillat was the only other rider to break the 1min 50sec barrier until Poret ran a 1min 48.920sec that put him into third behind Bossche and Reiterer.

The leading quartet held station with eight minutes remaining on the clock with Tanguy Mezière, Anders Keller, Paul Thomas and Deven Farthing holding station just outside the leading four places. Toshi O’Hara then moved up to fifth with a lap of 1min 50.468sec and Poret carded a 1min 45.617sec run to slot into second behind Bossche and push Reiterer down to third.  Dardillat’s fifth lap of 1min 48.076sec moved the Frenchman ahead of Reiterer and into third, while Thomas slotted into fifth at the expense of O’Hara with three minutes on the clock.

Bossche took to the water again at the end of the session to protect his position at the top of the timings, as Deven Farthing (1min 46.006sec) moved into third and pushed Dardillat, Reiterer, Thomas, Dag Martin Drange and O’Hara down to fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth. In the dying seconds, Poret ran a superb lap of 1min 43.854sec to grab the top spot with Bossche and Farthing finished with the second and third fastest laps.

Gabor Szabo was a non-starter and Alec Enderli only took to the water with less than seven minutes remaining and slotted into 12th behind Anders Keller and ahead of Alex Barret.

Twenty-one non-contracted Runabout GP1 entrants then carried out their qualifying session after Dustin Farthing had dominated the times in the earlier free practice session. The American took advantage of clean water to clock an opening time of 1min 38.431sec and that was a potent gauntlet for the rest to follow. Mattias Siimann came within a second of Farthing’s time on his second lap and moved into second ahead of a distant Lino Araújo, Ruben Riquelme and Linus Lindberg.

Farthing and Siimann remained the only two riders to have broken the 1min 40sec barrier with 10 minutes of the session remaining and the American was over seven seconds clear of Araújo in third. Siimann then improved slightly with a 1min 38.656sec to trail Farthing by just 0.224 seconds, as Rasmus Koch Hansen climbed into fourth at the expense of Riquelme.

Lindberg then bettered his time to slot into fourth behind Araújo and push Koch Hansen into fifth with Riquelme, Marcel Diebert, Benajmin Boecker, Egidijus Kirilevicius and Juan Cruz Lezcano rounding off the top 10 with four minutes left. Siimann’s persistence then paid off and the Estonian scorched around the course in 1min 36.655sec on his seventh lap to snatch the top spot from Farthing and force the American back out on to the circuit if he was to improve on his solitary flying lap.

Farthing didn’t return to the circuit and Siimann claimed the fastest run of the session from the American, Araújo, Lindberg, Koch Hansen, Riquelme, Jean-Baptiste Baldassari, Diebert, Boecker and Johan Johansson. Kirilevicius and Lezcano were 11th and 12th but Alberto Santini was a non-starter and both Jun Ikoma and Emanuele Masala were disqualified.