Dubai: American pilot Shaun Torrente believes his quest for consistency may just be the right element needed to land Victory Team with their first-ever crown at the end of the UIM F1H2O World Championship later this month.
After a taste of action towards the end of last season, 2016 has been Victory Team’s full debut season into the Formula One fold of powerboat racing. Torrente has been accompanied by multiple Class One world champion Nader Bin Hindi in the second Victory Team boat during the past five rounds of the championship held in Dubai, France, Portugal and Harbin and Liuzhou in China.
Frenchman Philippe Chiappe of the CTIC China Team has been managing to stay on track for a third successive world crown as he leads the drivers’ championship with 67 points. But close on his heels is Torrente, just 13 points adrift with 54, while Sami Selio (47 points), Alex Carella (42 points) and Jonas Andersson (37 points) are also in the hunt for top honours with the final two rounds remaining in Abu Dhabi [December 7-9] and the season finale in Sharjah [December 14-16].
Torrente, who has managed to stay within striking distance of the defending champion through three third place finishes in Dubai, Evian and Portimao and a couple of fourth spots in the two Chinese races, is quietly confident in the ability of the Dubai-based set-up to go the distance.
“At Victory Team we don’t believe in chasing anybody. We just don’t believe in chasing the pack. That’s our motto. We do our own thing and we work hard to reach where we want to be. We are the leaders always,” Torrente told Gulf News before landing from the US in the UAE on Friday.
“We have worked hard and we have been very competitive all year through. We should have won at least a race already, but that’s all down on me with the mistake I made out there,” he conceded.
“But we feel very confident in our programme going forward. The guys in the team have been working hard at the shop and I am just so very excited at going out there and getting that first World Championship for Victory Team,” the boy from Miami, Florida added.
Perhaps, one of the main constituents, besides the fantastic set-up of Victory Team in Jebel Ali that will surely stand in good stead, is an eye for consistency. “I think we have been consistent and methodical about our approach always, and that is the reason why we are ahead of most of the boats out there this season,” Torrente observed.
“We will stay consistent. We will stay methodical. Hopefully we will add some more speed and that will make us even more of a threat and we go after clean wins in the remaining two races in Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. We need to win these last two,” he stressed.
