LAKE TOBA, INDONESIA – Months of preparation will be tested this weekend when spectacular Lake Toba in Sumatra hosts the 3rd Grand Prix of Indonesia, the opening round of the 2025 UIM F1H2O World Championship.
A late start means five Grands Prix are packed into the final five months of the year. Indonesia opens the season for the third year running, with the move to August expected to bring slightly better weather – especially as racing takes place in the mornings on the world’s largest volcanic lake.
The 2025 calendar
After the Balige-based round, the series heads to China for back-to-back races in Shanghai and Zhengzhou in early October. The championship then ends in the Middle East, with a new venue in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, hosting the penultimate round at the end of November and Sharjah staging the traditional finale on Khaled Lagoon the week before Christmas.
Last week’s five-day aquabike festival on the lake was a big success: 16-year-old Indonesian Boanerges Ratag became the youngest ever World Endurance Champion, while Jasmiin Ypraus, Oliver Koch Hansen, François Medori and Roberto Mariani won their Grand Prix categories.
Lake Toba winners Bartek Marszalek (2023) and Rusty Wyatt (2024) both took their first career Grand Prix wins there – who will be next? Ten teams and 20 drivers line up, with debuts for Team Abu Dhabi’s Mansoor Al-Mansoori and the Comparato F1 Team’s Damon Cohen.
Team Sweden and Andersson
Team Sweden (Team Vietnam in 2024) swept the Drivers’, Teams’ and Pole Position titles last year. Leader Jonas Andersson, world champion in 2021, 2023 and 2024 with 36 podiums and 16 GP wins, is backed by Johan Österberg and Kalle Viippo.
Sharjah Team and Wyatt
Last year, Rusty Wyatt produced one of the most spectacular finishes in Grand Prix history to win on his Sharjah Team debut. As Andersson and Erik Stark faltered on the final lap, the Canadian swept around the outside to snatch victory, setting up a season in which the title was settled in Andersson’s favour only at the Sharjah finale, after Wyatt retired from his Sprint race and Andersson won the Grand Prix. Wyatt stays with four-time champion Scott Gillman’s Sharjah Team for 2025, joined by young Estonian Stefan Arand – Andersson’s team-mate at Team Vietnam early in 2024 – and third driver Filip Roms.
Team Abu Dhabi signs Stark
Team Abu Dhabi has one of the strongest records in the sport, but titles have eluded it under 10-time champion Guido Cappellini since 2022. After a difficult 2024 hit by driver changes, the team re-signed Swede Erik Stark to lead its effort. Stark has 16 podiums and five wins and was one of the few able to beat Andersson last year, finishing third in the standings with the Victory Team.
Based at the Abu Dhabi Marine Sports Club (ADMSC), the team has seven Teams’ titles and four Drivers’ titles and is keen to develop local talent. Rashed Al-Qemzi stays as third driver, while veteran Thani Al-Qamzi has retired and is replaced by Mansoor Al-Mansoori, stepping up from the UIM F2 World Championship.
Torrente returns with Victory Team
Three-time champion Shaun Torrente retired after a disappointing 2023 with Team Abu Dhabi, but an offer to rejoin the Victory Team he first raced for in 2015 brought him back. The Florida racer – 11 GP wins and titles in 2018, 2019 and 2022 – replaces Stark alongside young Finn Alec Weckström and Emirati Ahmad Al-Fahim. The Victory Team was fourth in last year’s Teams’ standings.
The rest of the grid
China CTIC Team had planned to run Frenchman Peter Morin and American Brent Dillard, but Dillard needed back surgery and is taking time out, opening the door for Australian Grant Trask (debut 2016, 19 races) to return. Morin, one of 2024’s form drivers, narrowly missed third in the standings in Sharjah; he has seven podiums but no win yet, and wants to improve on the team’s third place in the Teams’ Championship.
Strømøy Racing keeps 2023 winner Bartek Marszalek and all-rounder Marit Strømøy, fifth in last year’s Teams’ standings and fifth and seventh among the drivers. Strømøy, with 103 starts and five podiums, continues developing the four-stroke V8 360 APX Mercury engine – and in 2015 became the first woman to win a Grand Prix, in Sharjah.
After a short spell with Team Abu Dhabi in early 2024, Alberto Comparato returns full-time with his own team. His only podium came in Sharjah in 2022, and he took his first pole in San Nazzaro in 2021. Australian Damon Cohen – a familiar paddock face as engine builder and lead mechanic for Grant and Brock Trask – makes his GP debut as second driver.
Two-time champion Sami Seliö (2007 and 2010) again leads the Red Devil-SMC F1 Team with Dutchman Ferdinand Zandbergen. Rookie of the Year on his 1998 debut, the Finn is focused on success in a boat he designed himself while at the Sharjah Team; he debuted the hull in the UAE last December and also gave test driver Roope Virtanen seat time in winter testing. His last GP win came nine years ago in Harbin.
Portuguese racer Duarte Benavente founded the F1 Atlantic Team, which debuted in 1999, and again partners Britain’s Ben Jelf, ninth in last year’s standings after rapid progress. Maverick Racing, created by French veteran Jean Vital Deguisne and in the series since 2015, keeps Cedric Deguisne and Alexandre Bourgeot for a fifth straight season; the team finished seventh, eighth, 10th and ninth in the last four Teams’ Championships.
Lake Toba and the schedule
Lake Toba fills the caldera of a supervolcano formed by a huge climate-changing eruption around 70,000 years ago. Toba Caldera, one of Indonesia’s 20 geoparks, was recognised as a UNESCO Global Geopark in 2020.
Technical checks and registration take place on Thursday in Balige. Friday brings an hour of free practice from 07:00 local time (GMT+7), then three-stage qualifying from 10:30, which sets the grid for both the Grand Prix and Saturday’s two Sprint races at 11:10 and 11:40. After a one-hour warm-up on Sunday morning, the Grand Prix starts at 11:15.