Saundersfoot’s Sam Coleman led ‘Team Brady’ to its first victory of the seaon over the weekend, in the E1 raceboat championships.

Friday was a positive day on the smooth waters of Lake Maggiore with the team finishing P3 after the time trials. Sam started the Qualifying race strong, and inherited the lead halfway round the lap. He controlled the race from there to take three points and P1 for Saturday’s first race.

Double wins in Saturday’s Group Races from Sam and Emma sent the team straight through to the Finals and lining up in P1.

Emma held the lead after a tight first lap battle with Westbrook Racing, and even after a long lap penalty, an excellent strategy and phenomenal pace saw Emma take the win, giving Sam P1 for the Final. Her masterclass performance in this race also earned her PIF Pilot of the Day.

Sam held his nerve to deliver another excellent start, keeping the lead through the first corner, and a well-managed strategy with strong pace saw him cross the line 12 seconds clear to take the team’s first win of the season. A dominant performance closes the gap to the front of the Championship and the team will aim to take this momentum into Monaco on 18-19 July.

Sam Coleman, Team Brady Pilot said: “This is great, I’m so proud of the team and so happy with the result. There’s been some ridiculously tight racing this weekend and some big crashes, so we were happy to come away clean and with max points. Emma did such a great job to put us on pole and she so deserves pilot of the day. I can’t thank the team enough, we nailed it when it mattered and did a great job all weekend, I’m so proud of everybody - just brilliant.

“We’ve still got some work to do to catch Team Rafa and Team Aoki but we are chipping away, and it’s coming, so we’re happy.”

Emma Kimiläinen, Team Brady Pilot said:“A great weekend from us, we won every race there was with max points from quali yesterday and the race today. Everyone was working their hardest, we aimed to win and we absolutely executed that and learned a lot while doing it which is amazing. I’m so proud of Sam too, the whole team effort was brilliant all weekend.

“It was also super fun to race really closely this weekend, it reminds me of my past in motorsport and it’s great that we have such amazing drivers here that we can really trust, so great piloting from everyone.”

E1 is the world’s first and only all-electric raceboat championship sanctioned by the Union Internationale Motonautique (UIM), the international governing body for powerboating activities.

The UIM E1 World Championship presented by PIF was established to create a new, exciting and competitive on-water racing Championship using electric technologies to focus efforts on innovations that help protect and restore our urban waters and coastal areas.

The Championship sees teams featuring both a male and female pilot. Racing on the water in iconic cities around the world including Jeddah, Doha, Monaco, and Miami, teams are owned by some of the biggest names on the planet.

These already include LeBron James, Will Smith, Marc Anthony and Steve Aoki from the world of entertainment, Rafael Nadal, Tom Brady, Virat Kohli and Didier Drogba from the world of sport and Marcelo Claure from the world of business.