MEDIA INFORMATION
2025 UIM-ABP European Continental Aquabike Championship
MOTO 1 SKI GP1 AND RUNABOUT GP1 SUCCESS FOR KOCH HANSEN AND PEREZ IN HUNGARY
Saturday, August 2: Dane Oliver Koch Hansen and Frenchman Jéremy Perez prevailed in the last of the opening Motos in the Ski GP1 and Runabout GP1 categories at the Grand Prix of Hungary, near Győr, on Saturday afternoon.
Opening Ski GP1 Moto success for Koch Hansen
Mickael Poret had earned pole for the opening Ski GP1 Moto as he set out to defend his European Championship lead over brother Morgan Poret and Oliver Koch Hansen.
Surprisingly, Lucas Binar made the strongest start and led from Koch Hansen, Mickael Poret, Valentin Dardillat and Quinten Bossche through the opening turn buoys. Kevin Reiterer was down in eighth when the race was red-flagged on safety grounds with Morgan Poret taking a tumble into the water away from his jet-ski.
Koch Hansen took full advantage of the restart to move ahead of a resurgent Morgan Poret, Dardillat, Mickael Poret and Mattias Reinass. Bossche and Reiterer were down in seventh and ninth positions.
Koch Hansen began to edge away from the chasing pack and had increased his lead to 20.64 seconds after six laps. The leading quintet retained their positions from them on and Koch Hansen duly confirmed the Moto win by 35.53 seconds. Bossche moved ahead of Alec Enderli to take sixth and Reiterer was eighth of the 21 finishers.
The precious 25 points for Koch Hansen enabled the Pro Watercraft rider to trim Mickael Poret’s European Championship lead to just four points with Morgan Poret also closing the gap on his older brother.
Koch Hansen said: “It was a good start and then we got cancelled and we go again. Luckily for me, it was a good start again, I closed the door quick and built up a nice lead for the whole race.”
Perez extends European series lead with opening Runabout GP1 Moto win
Runaway championship leader Jéremy Perez had pole position for the first of the Runabout GP1 Motos and lined up ahead of his closest title rivals Pierre-François Savelli and Robin Laforge.
Perez started strongly and held his advantage over György Kasza, Andrzej Wisniewski, Savelli and Laforge into the opening lap. Savelli then found a way past Wisniewski to take third, as Perez and Kasza began to pull away from the rest of the field. As Perez increased his lead over Kasza to 5.35 seconds into lap four, Savelli plummeted out of contention, retired and his demise lifted Wisniewski and Laforge back into third and fourth with Petr Dryjak holding fifth.
Perez continued to be the class of the field and reached the chequered flag 9.19 seconds ahead of Kasza to increase his European Championship lead over third-placed Laforge to 38 points. The success marked Perez’s sixth Moto win from seven starts this season.
Dryjak, Wisniewski and Levente Kacor rounded off the top six, although the leading duo had lapped all their rivals. Florian Bardoux was docked a lap for ignoring signals and slipped back to 13th, while Kasza, Kacor and Savelli all earned 25-second penalties for not maintaining their lanes at the start. As a result, Kasza finished the Moto 34.19sec behind Perez and Martin Doulík replaced Kacor in sixth position.
Perez said: “I take a good start and get the hole shot and I managed to stay ahead. Kasza was behind me and he pushed, so it was a good race. Good points and now we see tomorrow.”
Ends