Norway’s Marit Strømøy will become the first woman to race in Class 1 for over a decade when she makes her debut at the Brazilian Grand Prix in Rio de Janeiro, 26-28 March. 

Welmax Offshore Racing has confirmed that the team will run a two-boat entry in their bid for title honours in 2010, with Strømøy joining her fellow Norwegians Jorn Tandberg and Kolbjorn Selmer and the second newcomer to the team, Italian, Giorgio Manuzzi.

The two-boat line-up will see the team running MTI and Maritimo designed and built hulls, both powered by Mercury V8 power-plants, but the team has stated that it will not finalise its pairings until they arrive in Brazil.

Milan Teodorovic came second in the UIM annual photo competition with this picture taken from an inboard camera from our boat in Doha,Qatar in November 2009. An awsome picture! Click picture to enlarge!

Marit ended the F1 World Cup season with a very good 5th position in the race in Sharjah. After a good qualifying, she started in 7th position and made no mistakes. With 7 World Cup points she ended 12th in the drivers Championship. Team Azerbaijan was third in the Team Championsip standings, but the man of the year was Guido Cappelini as he took his 10th World Title.

Now the teams are heading home for a long Christmas break before the work starts for the next season.

The race in Abu Dhabi saw a lot of drama as Team Azerbaijan driver Jonas Andersson had a huge accident with Pierre Lundin. Both drivers were ok, but the boats needs a lot of work before next weeks race in Sharjah. Marit had a good day at work and finished in 7th and picked up 4 valuable points for the team.

Marit had a good start on the first race in Doha and after 15 minutes she was running in 4th position. Unfortunately as a couple of other times this season, she suffered trimproblems and fell down to 11th position. The team has now found the problem with the overheatet trimpump. The second race was very choppy and Marit ended in 10th.