MEDIA INFORMATION
2025 UIM F1H2O WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
MARIT STRØMØY LOOKS TO TAKE THE FOUR-STROKE V8 ENGINE TO A 2025 PODIUM FINISH
Thursday, February 6: It’s now 10 years since Marit Strømøy made history by becoming the first woman to win a round of the UIM F1H2O World Championship. That famous victory at the Grand Prix of Sharjah earned the Norwegian joint fourth place in the Drivers’ Championship and came four years after she had earned a first ever pole position at Portimão in Portugal.
Since that historic day in December 2015, Strømøy has been a model of consistency in the championship, finishing inside the top 10 in six of the following eight seasons. She took the decision to develop a new, cleaner four-stroke V8 360 APX Mercury engine for her DAC in 2023 and has been gradually improving the package over the last two seasons, the highlight being fourth place at last year’s Regione Sardegna Grand Prix of Italy and top 10 finishes in five of the six 2024 races.
While her Strømøy Racing team-mate Bartek Marszalek has persevered with two-stroke power, Marit has been determined to push the development of the four-stroke power plant. As she explained: “We are constantly working on improving the performance of the four-stroke engine. We tested a lot during the last half of the 2024 season and I’m sure we are well prepared for a new season. I am really looking forward to the season opener in Vietnam. We will aim for the podium. Nothing would please me more that to bring the APX to the podium.”
Power boat racing is in her blood. Strømøy Racing is the largest and oldest powerboat racing team in Norway and dates back to the late 1960s when her father Leif started racing. That legacy has been passed down to the next generation and Marit now heads a multi-national operation from Sandefjord with her husband Andrea Colombo.
Marit began racing in 1989 and spent three seasons in the T-250 class before switching to the S-550 category in 1993. Three European Championship titles followed with her father working as the main mechanic and then she switched to F2 at the turn of the century. She finished second in the 2002 President Cup series in the Middle East and set her sights on graduating to F1H2O after four further years in F2.
She joined the F1H2O racing family in 2007 and has featured strongly ever since with the likes of Team Nautica, Team Sweden, the Rainbow Team, Team Ajerbaijan and now through Strømøy Racing. After her father’s sudden passing in 2009, Marit met her future husband who was then working as a technician for Team Abu Dhabi.
The association with Team Nautica and a new boat built by BaBa racing netted that famous pole position in 2011, although Marit failed to finish the race after leading for 15 laps. Aside from F1H2O, Andrea and Marit also formed a successful Junior Team in Norway in 2012 and have also built a two-seater boat for media and promotional purposes in Norway.
The famous maiden win in Sharjah came in 2015 with Team EMIC. Andrea had started working for the team alongside Jean-Claude Goy and Australian racer Craig Bailey and Marit’s team-mate Christophe Larigot. Bailey remains an integral member of the team to this day alongside the likes of Frederik Bastin, Martin Ballaschk and Colombo himself.
Marit has 103 race starts under her belt but also has unfinished business. She may have five career podiums to her name but she has the hunger for much more. The last podium finish was third place in Portugal in 2021. The lights go out on a new season of F1H2O at the start of May in Vietnam – Marit will be aiming for the podium and another piece of history with the four-stroke V8 360 APX Mercury engine.
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