Ciantar shines as Conam Yachts dominate Marseille GP

The Conam Yachts team continued their impressive start to their Powerboat P1 World Championship SuperSport title defence in France on Sunday, dominating the shortened Endurance race of the Grand Prix de Marseille to complete a weekend double victory and secure overall success.

Pilot Aaron Ciantar and throttleman and team boss Angelo Tedeschi led the way from the start to win by a comfortable 26-second margin from VoomVoom.com and Phoenix TV boats. The win puts the reigning champions back in the lead of the SuperSport class, with 100-point advantage over the VoomVoom.com crew.

The Baia High Performance crew got the better of the Silverline Buzzi Bullet boat in the scrap for fourth place, while the Saho crew did a solid job to recover to sixth place after missing the first turn buoy and dropping to the tail end of the field.

The Spirit of Portomaso boat rounded out the race finishers, with the Big Sergio retiring from the race and the Sunseeker team failing to start after Saturday's practice incident that resulted in the team's entry sinking.

Conam Yachts had raced to a comfortable win in the sprint race on Saturday. The Tedeschi and Ciantar tandem led home the Saho Offshore Rana's boat and the Phoenix TV team, with an almost three-minute lead at the chequered flag.

"The water conditions were very bad, but we applied our strategy to make a good start," said Ciantar. "This advantage gave us the possibility to manage our position to the middle of the course. The conditions kept changing with the wind, but it was okay for the victory."

In the Evolution division the Fountain Worldwide team produced a spectacular display in incredibly rough conditions as James Sheppard and Craig Wilson won the Endurance race to secure overall victory with a full 200-point score.

This wasn't the Fountain team's easiest win, though, as they first had to come from behind and then defend their lead to finish ahead of GFN Gibellato and Pignolo who were second and third respectively.

SuperSport class standings: Conam Yachts 360; VoomVoom.com 260; Saho 200; Baia High Performance 190; Phoenix 170; Silverline Buzzi Bullet 110; The Big Sergio, The Spirit of Portomaso 80.

Evolution class standings: Fountain Worldwide 300; GFN Gibellato, Lucas Oil 210; Pignolo 160; Kiton Outerlimits 130; Centaurian Yachts 100; The Fantastic 1 90; Cranefields Wine 80; Honeyparty.com, Italcraft 0.