2B1 Racing #33 Furnibo´s final season!
2B1 Racing #33 Furnibo´s final season! Certainly if we go home with the world title adds Pierre Colpin, driver of the world championship contending race team 2B1 Racing from Belgium. Personal and business calendars make it harder year by year to race a full season. So our plan for this year is to take home the trophy and call it a day.
To be ready for the future and achieve future goals, you sometime need to look to the past for answers. Despite having a very quick boat, competitive on all sorts of water, it was the Italian MetaMarine crew and boat that took home the prices. Pierre comes to the simple conclusion that unfortunately bad luck played a major part in 2B1 Furnibo not having been able to beat the MetaMarine. Pierre says: “We have had compressor belts come off during a race, ruptures in the cooling system that made an engine overheat, us mistakenly running out of fuel while racing, point deduction for a broken off torque sensor and there were a couple more mishaps during the season that prevented us from being on top of things every race weekend. In a five race weekend, ten race season, just too much went wrong for us to really be able to push for first place. There were races where we had the better pace over everyone else but you need to be consistently fast during the season to be the winner at the end. A good friend of mine and organizer of the Belgian Offshore Challenge (BOC) always says: to finish first, you first have to finish. MetaMarine did just that. They were consistently fast all season and I really do think they are the rightful claimers of the title this season. They have been working at it for a number of years now and my sincere congratulations to them for having it all fall together for them this season. “
Pierre also had some thought to share with us about the UIM GPS season last year. “We know it was a transition year with P1 pulling the plug in April 2010. We are all very grateful to Jean-Marie van Lancker and his wife Kathy van den Hende to step in and make the most of the season. But it is clear we now have to grow again. Getting TV coverage will be paramount to attract the bigger and better sponsors to the series and teams. At all events the essentials were in place but in terms glamour, promotion and even work space for the crews, I hope UIM Ocean Grand Prix (UIM OGP) will take the next step this season.”
Rumor had it that 2B1 would start the new season with an all new boat and all Belgian team. “We flirted with that thought” Pierre says, “but when you take for instance Chaudron Ukranian Spirit, they came in with an all new boat last season and they only started to pick on to the pace in the latter half of the season. It takes at least 1 to 2 seasons before you are able to get everything out of the boat and crew and have a shot at the top spot. We just don’t have that time. It has become increasingly hard to match calendars and this year might be our last in racing UIM Ocean Grand Prix. So we decided to go with our Fountain and give it our best shot to bring home the title this year. An all Belgian team was a nice idea to flirt with an the planned boat looks awesome, really beautiful lines, but alas, we cannot make that a reality. We have a strong believe in our Fountain and have made no changes to the setup. We could race today if need be and we are convinced it is the right boat for us for the 2011 season”.
“The only changes for us are with the team set-up. The most visible change will be that Benjamin van Riet will no longer be our back-up driver. With this possibly being our last season, Frank (Hemelaer, throttleman) and I decided we want to race all races together. Previous seasons I would not be able to attent one or two weekends during a season. My absence was always filled by Benjamin. With very limited opportunities to be out on the water for him this season and Benjamin being an ambitious guy, the three of us decided it was best if Benjamin started looking around for other opportunities to race. We will miss Benjamin as he has always worked very hard within the team as well but I think this is the best way forward for both Benjamin and us as a team. Apart from that we have a new guy coming in and some changes of roles within the team that make us confident 2B1 Racing will be a well oiled machine for the 2011 UIM OGP season.”
“Looking ahead to this season I see MetaMarine as our main competitor for the title if their Class 1 ambitions will not interfere with the driving crew of Giampaolo Montavoci and Marco Pennesi being present in UIM OGP. With Luca (Fomilli Fendi) leaving SNAV OSG I think Giovanni Carpitella will return to together with Giancarlo Cangiano form the crew for that boat again. They have proven to be a quick combination so I expect to see a lot from them too, provided Giovanni returns to the driver’s seat.”
“What I am particularly excited about” Pierre adds “is that we will have some sort of home race in Den Helder, the Netherlands. It is so close to Belgium that I hope and expect to have a lot of Belgian supporters and friends lining the shores there. For a lot of people we know it was quite difficult to follow us as the races were pretty far away and going there would mean considerable time from home. Now people from Belgium can easily come up to Den Helder for a weekend, a day or even just one race to watch us go. I really hope a lot of them will take the trouble to come up there and support us during the Dutch race.”
Looking ahead to the further future of UIM OGP, Pierre is happy the series found a sponsor in the form of the International Sea Racing company (ISR) from Malta. He is also glad Ruben Caruana of MFCC, a big events production company from Malta, is more closely involved now in organizing UIM OGP events. “I think International Sea Racing have a sensible strategy for the upcoming years and Ruben knows events and is a very cost conscious guy. With Jean-Marie van Lancker staying on as race director with all his good contacts with teams and venue sites, I think UIM Ocean Grand Prix might have found their golden triangle to secure a long and healthy future.”
Furnibo´s Mr. Bernard Joye and son visiting 2B1 Racing Furnibo stand and boat at Gent boatshow
We would like to thank Pierre Colpin for the interview on behalf of the 2B1 Racing #33 Funibo Team and the pictures from his personal files. We would also like to thank the UIM Grand Prix of the Sea organisation for granting us the right to publish the pictures of the UIM Grand Prix of the Sea events.
