Rovanperä tested a F-1 boat

- An amazing gear! I’ve tried driving many kinds of vehicles, and even some quite powerful civilian boats, but this was just unbelievable. I can tell this was a fantastic experience, Rovanperä said smiling after having had an opportunity of driving a 400 horse-power F-1 catamaran on the sea off Sörnäinen, in Helsinki, on Tuesday June 10th.

- We had discussed this before with Patu Leppälä and now the opportunity offered thanks to the F-1 boats’ World Championship event of this weekend, Rovanperä told after the test.

- You learn to handle it somehow quite quickly. Accelerating wasn’t that surprising, and even the speed didn’t really feel, but turning was incredible. When Patu was driving, I wondered if he wasn’t going to turn at all when the pier was getting closer and closer. Then suddenly Patu just turned the boat back to the direction we were coming from and there we went again.

- The turn was really violent. You never have such pounding in a rally car. These F-1 drivers are some characters. You just have to take your hat off to them, Rovanperä admitted.

Luckily the sea calmed down a bit. Once the bow almost took off when I fumbled a little with the trimmers you handle with your feet, Rovanperä described his experience. The rally driver speeded the boat at about 180 km/h at his best, Patu Leppälä estimated, whereas the gear goes over 200 km/h in competition.

- A pretty strong performance from a first-timer, Harri really is a good hand in any vehicle, Leppälä praised.