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Monday, February 24: Quinten Bossche is nicknamed ‘The Belgian Bomber’ for good reason. The Fast Powersports GP1 rider won the highly-competitive Ski Division GP1 category in the UIM-ABP Aquabike Circuit Pro World Championship in 2017 and then dominated the discipline last season to seal his second world title.
The 31-year-old Ostende racer had taken leave of absence in 2023 but was one of the names listed on the impressive entry list for the inaugural Grand Prix of Bình Định-Vietnam on Thi Nai Bay in the city of Quy Nhơn last March. Little did the Belgian or any of his rivals realise how dominant he would be in the three Motos that were held in punishing heat and humidity that weekend.
He began his challenge with a perfect 25-point score from Moto 1 and then overcame slight fatigue as the weekend progressed to earn a sensational three-Moto haul, the Grand Prix win and an 11-point championship lead over Austrian Kevin Reiterer.
That completely dominant display was not a flash in the pan either: Bossche repeated the feat at the Regione Sardegna Grand Prix of Italy in Olbia. He beat Reiterer and Morgan Poret in the opening Moto, Reiterer and Toshi O’Hara in Moto 2 and finished in front of Morgan Poret and O’Hara in Moto 3. Remarkably, he had amassed 150 points from six races and headed to the showdown on Lake Toba in Indonesia with a 24-point lead in the World Championship.
Quinten was not able to deliver the pace and performances he had shown to prove himself unbeatable in Vietnam and Sardinia but he managed to finish each of the three Motos in Sumatra to seal the Ski Division GP1 world title by 14 points from Reiterer. He was content to sit back and watch Morgan and Jérémy Poret and Reiterer battle it out in Moto 1 on his way to fifth and then shadowed Reiterer to the finish in the next two to seal his second title.
Bossche started racing from a tender age and won his first competition at the age of six. He had shown his true potential in the UIM-ABP Aquabike World Championship in 2017. That season’s campaign was fought out over 10 Motos in Italy, Dubai and Sharjah and Bossche tackled a full programme on his Kawasaki SXR ski entered through QB1 Racing.
He ceded the Grand Prix of Italy win to Jérémy Poret and then earned a win and a DNF at the next two Italian Motos. But the Belgian went on a superb run to the end of the season in the UAE, winning two Motos and finishing third on four occasions to wrest the world title from Reiterer’s clutches.
The following season he scored points in six of the seven Motos in Italy and Sharjah and finished the year in third behind Reiterer and Raphael Maurin. Bossche only tackled one Grand Prix in 2019 and claimed second place over the race weekend with a win and two runner-up finishes. He was seriously injured in a crash on Lake Havasu in the USA that year and started out on a full comeback programme that required a lot of patience, personal mental strength and rehabilitation with his physiotherapist.
He was absent from the championship for the two seasons after the 2020 shutdown but returned in 2022 to take a pair of Moto wins and a non-finish in Ibiza. Two world titles later, the Belgian is also giving back to the sport that he loves. Through QB1 Racing, he also coaches young riders and trains them about race watercraft so that they could one day follow him to multiple World, European and National titles.