Team Jelf Plagued with problems in F2 World Championship 

Round 3 of the F2 World Championships  has seen team mates Colin and Owen Jelf plagued with problems in their bid to retain the World Championship title for a 4th consecutive year.  

Going into Round 3 at Fujairah in the UAE reigning champion Colin Jelf was tied on 20 points in the lead of the championship with Italy’s Alex Carella with team mate and Brother Owen Jelf sat in a comfortable 7th in the championship and everything was still to play for.  

Sunday 13th December saw free practice in the morning cancelled after just 30 mins due to bad weather conditions. A break in the weather saw qualifying 1 underway at 12:30 (local time) but further problems for Team Jelf as Colin’s engine seized on his first lap and was left in the middle of the course for the whole session in an unrecoverable position. Further Bad news for Team Jelf saw them with a lot of hard work ahead of them when Owen’s engine also seized at the end of the session.  

Weather had improved for Monday’s free practice session but Colin & Owen’s engine’s both seized again and with less than an hour to the second qualifying session the pressure was on.  

The second qualifying session saw reigning Champion Colin Jelf’s engine seize for the 4th time giving him a 10th starting place on the race grid with several other members of the fleet facing engine problems as well. Better luck for Owen Jelf saw him qualify in 3rd for the days race and the battle ahead of them.  

As the race got underway Owen pushed and held 3rd whilst Colin powered his way up the fleet into 6th despite seizing another 3 times until further bad luck saw him do a double barrel role and with it sent him out of the race. The restart saw problems for Owen as he dropped back into 8th position and managed to pull his way back to 5th in a formidable race.  

Italy’s Alex Carella also pulled out of the race after a coming together with a back marker leaving, the Italian driver Ivan Brigada, to clinch the Fujairah Grand Prix 2009 round of the UIM F2 World Championship Ivan Brigada, driving a DAC came in the first place recording a time speed of 00:36:39:88 securing 20 points, the Latvian driver Uvis Slakteris took second securing another 15 points putting him in the pole position for the race to the world title. With third place going to Kuwait’s Youssef Al Robayaan, securing 12 points before the final round.

Alex Carella and Colin Jelf winners of Bahrain GP and Port Ghaleb GP were not lucky enough to secure any points before the final round.

Team Jelf now have a battle ahead of them to make the minor repairs to Colin’s boat required before the continental Championship begins today and iron out any engine problems in both boats before the final round of the world championship on the 17th & 18th later this week. So the World Championship Leader board stands as

Position	Boat Number	Driver	Nationality	Points to date
1	51	Uvis Slakteris	Lat	30
2	14	Johan Coenradi	Ned	28
3	80	Ivan Briagda	ITA	25
= 4	1	Colin Jelf	UK	20
= 4	93	Alex Carella	ITA	20
= 6	3	Owen Jelf	UK	17
= 6	75	Sven Jansson	SWE	17
8	11	Youssef Al Robayan	KUW	16
9	28	Erik Stark	SWE	15
10	77	Bart Marzsalek	POL	13
11	8	Davide Padovan	ITA	12
12	20	Nick Bisterfield	GER	7
13	6	Phillippe Toure	FRA	4
= 14	70	Beranger Robart	FRA	2
= 14	10	Michael Nylund	FIN	2
=16	2	Johan Osterberg	SWE	0
= 16	27	Laszlo Kovacs	HUN	0
= 16	29	Paul Shepherd	RSA	0
= 16	7	Malek Almalek	UAE	0
= 16	37	F. Sanchez	SPA	0

The Teams now face the stand alone competition of F2 Continental Championship today (15th December) before the final round of the World Championship over the 17th & 18th later this week.

Team Jelf  now have a fight ahead of them if they want to bring the World title back to the UK for a fourth consecutive year, but it’s still achievable and Colin and Owen will both be focussed in giving it 150% to achieve their goal.

Image supplied by Matt Palfreyman