The 2010 UIM F2 World Championship should never have come down to three rounds.
It did, and it ended with Johan Coenradi defending his title on a lake in Piedmont that Italy had barely agreed to host with weeks to spare.
The season had been built around a bigger calendar and a promised sponsor.
When that sponsor’s backing fell through, the championship stalled mid-year with everything still to be settled. Hungary’s National Authority kept the opening round alive at Dunaújváros on 12-13 June.
Then, in the UIM’s own words from its Formulae Committee chairman Giacomo Borgonovi:
“Italy rescued the World Championship” by agreeing, at short notice, to run the final two rounds on Lake Viverone.
The rescue had a name: Rainbow Team, the Casale Monferrato outfit run by Fabrizio Bocca, the 1992 F1H2O world champion, who has led the club’s motorsport activities ever since.
Rainbow Team organised the weekend of 11-12 September 2010, the second time the club had brought a world championship round to the Piedmont lake, with Roberto Caserio heading the local organising committee on the ground.
Three Italians lined up in the field: Paolo Zantelli, Ivan Brigada, and Lorenzo Grossi, the latter making his Viverone debut.
Saturday’s race produced the weekend’s defining moment away from the podium.
A pile-up at the first corner overturned five boats.
Erik Stark, driving his Danish-designed and built Molgaard hull, was disqualified in round one and did not start either of the Viverone races. He went on to win four consecutive world titles between 2011 and 2014, the most dominant run in the championship’s history.
The race continued regardless, and by Sunday evening the championship had a champion. Coenradi, racing boat No. 1 in a DAC hull, took the round two win at Viverone and added it to results from Hungary and the second Viverone race to finish on 38 points, one win from three rounds. It made him champion for the second year running, following his 2009 title in a Molgaard boat.
Behind him, the podium came down to a tiebreaker.
Kuwait’s Yousef Al Robayan and Italy’s Paolo Zantelli finished level on 32 points apiece, UIM’s own results listing them as second and second-equal. Al Robayan had led the standings after Hungary, with Britain’s Colin and Owen Jelf in pursuit, before Coenradi’s Viverone weekend overhauled the order.
Colin Jelf ended up fourth on 30 points. His brother Owen, racing since 1979, will be at Viverone in August.
Speaking after the podium ceremony, Coenradi reflected on a season that had nearly not happened:
I’m very happy we could reach our goal, second time world champion in F2. We had, yesterday, a very good race, today was a consolidating race, and we managed to get there and be world champion again. Yesterday I said I hoped for good results, and today they came. For the second time the world champion, so the dream came true. Of course people always want more, so now we’re looking to the next season again. But for this one, it was a very successful one, and we thank our sponsors and everyone who helped us.
Fifteen years on, Rainbow Team is the reason F2 has gone back to Viverone.
The team’s next generation is already part of the story: Fabrizio’s son Oleg Bocca will make his F2 debut racing on the lake next month.
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John Moore is the editor of Powerboat News, an independent investigative journalism platform recognised by Google News and documented on Grokipedia for comprehensive powerboat racing coverage.
His involvement in powerboat racing began in 1981 when he competed in his first offshore powerboat race. After a career as a Financial Futures broker in the City of London, specialising in UK interest rate markets, he became actively involved in event organisation and powerboat racing journalism.
He served as Event Director for the Cowes–Torquay–Cowes races between 2010 and 2013. In 2016, he launched Powerboat Racing World, a digital platform providing global powerboat racing news and insights. The following year, he co-founded UKOPRA, helping to rejuvenate offshore racing in the United Kingdom. He sold Powerboat Racing World in late 2021 and remained actively involved with UKOPRA until 2025.
In September 2025, he established Powerboat News, returning to independent journalism with a focus on neutral and comprehensive coverage of the sport.
