Kalle Viippo narrowly pipped fellow Fin Juho-Matti Manninen to win Round 1 of the 2017 UIM F4 World Championship in Imatra today.

Latvia’s Nikita Lijcs held off Ben Jelf to take third position.

Jelf, who celebrated his 17th birthday today, was the ‘class of the Brits’ with his 4th place.

Sam Whittle took an early swim in the morning Free Practice session, his Powertech Marine team rallied to have his BaBa hull ready for qualifying and the driver rewarded them with 11th overall in the race.

Ben Morse had an excellent qualification session, lapping at 00.50.68 to give him fifth place on the grid.

However, a broken trim cable causing an intermittent fault between the wheel and dashboard forced a DNS.

The boats will compete for Round 2 of the 2017 Championship tomorrow, qualifying starts at 12.30 BST and the race at 16.00 BST.

Round 1 – 2017 UIM F4 World Championship – Imatra, Finland

1st) Kalle Viippo – FIN – 00.17.01
2nd) Juho-Matti Manninen – FIN – 00.17.02
3rd) Nikita Lijcs – LAT – 00.17.16
4th) Ben Jelf – GBR – 00.17.31
5th) Tuukka Lehtonen – FIN – 00.17.34
6th) Morgan Jernfast – SWE – 00.17.36
7th) Sebastian Haugaard – SWE – 1 Lap
8th) Lauri Landén – FIN – 1 Lap
9th) Alexander Lindholm – FIN – 1 Lap
10th) Magnus Sederholm – FIN – 1 Lap
11th) Sam Whittle – GBR – 1 Lap
12th) Marcin Szymczyk – POL – 1 Lap
13th) Sander Sarlin – EST – 2 Laps
14th) Virgilijus Gedrimas – LTU – 4 Laps
15th) Paulius Stainys – LTU – DNF
16th) Ben Morse – GBR – DNS