Alec Weckstrom has done it again in China. The Victory Team driver claimed pole position, won the Sprint Race, and dominated the Grand Prix at Shanghai to complete a near-perfect weekend in the UIM Formula 1 powerboat world championship. It’s his second victory on Chinese waters, and it comes at a moment when the field appears more fractured than ever.
The Finn’s performance was built on clean execution rather than drama, though there was plenty of the latter around him. Weckstrom made his pole position count with a strong start, taking the first turn cleanly while team mate Shaun Torrente slotted into second and Stefan Arand of Sharjah Team pressed from third. Behind them, Jonas Andersson—a three-time world champion—had other ideas. Starting from the back after an engine change, he tore through the field with characteristic aggression, his overtaking moves so bold that he nearly collected Ben Jelf on lap one.
The race’s character changed sharply on lap two when Brent Dillard’s China CTIC Team boat flipped. Dillard, caught in the spray kicked up by Rashed Al Qemzi ahead, failed to get his trim out of the water through the right-hander. The catamaran rotated and went over, dumping the American into the circuit and bringing out the Yellow Flag.
When racing resumed, Torrente made a costly decision. He attempted to sweep past his team mate through the same right-hander that had claimed Dillard, squeezing into a gap that simply wasn’t there. The collision sent Torrente spinning out of contention, a significant blow to the current world champion’s title defence. Weckstrom’s boat emerged unscathed.
What followed was a battle of attrition. Arand stayed within three seconds of the leader throughout, hunting for an opening but never finding one. Weckstrom had his moments of vulnerability—he nearly collected lapped traffic with 16 laps remaining, his boat and Jelf’s bouncing off each other rather than spinning out. Arand sensed an opportunity but couldn’t capitalise.
The race continued to splinter as the laps wore on. Rusty Wyatt suffered mechanical failure, bringing the Yellow Flag out again with less than a third of the 45-lap distance remaining. When green flag racing resumed, only nine boats remained in contention. Trask and Andersson made their move, executing a triple pass that lifted them up the order.
By the final lap, Arand trailed by just 1.096 seconds. But the Estonian was nursing a broken propeller by then, forced to run defensively rather than push. He held on. Trask rounded out the podium in third, Andersson finishing fourth.
The result sends Arand to the top of the drivers’ championship on the back of a second-place finish, keeping his maiden world title hopes alive after failing to score in Kyrgyzstan. For Weckstrom, the clean sweep confirms that his first Chinese victory wasn’t a one-off. He’s emerged as a genuine contender in a championship where the margins between success and disaster have rarely been tighter.
