Team Abu Dhabi’s Alex Carella will start Grand Prix of France inside the top 6

Team Abu Dhabi's Alex Carella will start Sunday's 19th Grand Prix of France inside the top six, but the Q3 qualifying shootout at Saturday afternoon's qualifying session and time trials on Lac Leman in Evian-les-Bains was postponed until Sunday on safety grounds.

Carella's Team Abu Dhabi teammate David Del Pin suffered front-end damage to his Mercury-engined BaBa on the opening lap of Q1 and retired under a yellow flag. He will now start Sunday's race near the rear of the field along with the Austrian Bernd Enzenhofer.

Carella's former teammate Shaun Torrente pieced together a deal to run a Victory Team BaBa in the days building up to the race, and the American also reached Q3 alongside Carella, Finland's Sami Selio, Kuwait's Youssef Al-Rubayan, Frenchman Phillipe Chiappe and Sweden's Jonas Andersson.

Ahmed Al Hameli of the Emirates Team flipped spectacularly in the dying seconds of Q2 while trying to improve on seventh place and reach the final six-boat shootout. Fortunately, the former Team Abu Dhabi driver was not injured in the incident, but his team face a long night to repair his boat for Sunday's race.

"We still have work to do to find the pace that we need to be truly competitive, but tomorrow is another day and we all hope for better water conditions,” Carella said.

Durng time trials, 18 of the 19 drivers lined up at the start of the three-stage qualifying session, but it was a disastrous start for Del Pin, who pulled up on the opening lap and drew a yellow flag even before several of the entrants had taken to the course. Enzenhofer of the Motorglass F1 Team was also sidelined in the incident.

Q1 eventually got underway in choppy and difficult water conditions and Torrente set the target lap of 54.98sec, with Carella and Al Hameli in close contention.

Al-Rubayan hit the front with a 54.33sec tour and safely reached Q2 with the fastest time for the F1 GC Atlantic Team.

Andersson and Torrente were his closest challengers and Carella reached Q2 in ninth, but the session spelt the end of the road for Bartek Marzsalak, Ziwei Xiong, Marit Stromoy and Cedric Deguisne as the field was reduced to 12.

A further six boats were eliminated in Q2 to leave six boats for a two-lap shootout to determine pole position, but the session was yellow-flagged almost immediately when Francesco Cantando stopped on the course and was towed to safety.

Only a couple of minutes were lost and Al Rubayan hit the front again with a 57.13sec lap. Carella moved up to third with 10 minutes remaining with a lap of 57.50sec.
Source: WAM