Having already made its maꦑrk in four-wheeled motorsport, Fiat is to power a🎀n entry into the Powerboat P1 World Championship for the 2008 season.

Sunseeker, the world's largest privately owned yacht company, has confirmed that it will enter a 39-foot Sunseeker XS Challenger into the SuperSport class of the series - which kicks off in Italy on 11 May - for Andy Wilby and Pete L🍨ittle, with the pair being powered by twin Fiat six-cylinder, turbocharged diesel engines - each pumping out 480 horsepower and producing 1,400 Newton metres of torque.

The engines, which are dyno-tested by race organizers to ensure they aren't uprated, also contain racing style da⛄ta loggers which record the rpm, fuel consumption and boost pressure. A specially developed ecu constantly monitors and regulates the engine speed, throttle position, and ambient and fuel temperatures to maximize the performance. The rev-limiters are set at 3,000 rpm and the engines are lifed at some thousands of hours, even for racing.

The boat itself is half a ton lighter than the one entered as a 'toe in the water' by Sunseeker last year, taking it down to the class minimum weight, and 🌸will be capable of top speeds of up to 85mph 🌄in calm sea conditions.

"It was a steep lea♈rning curve for all of us," Mark Dean, Fiat Powertrain Technologies business development manager, said. "Fiat started a new line of development on the N60 𒆙engine, which has powered trucks in the Paris-Dakar Raid, to meet the demands of racing on water.

"We learned a loওt last year, and so did Sunseeker because the production craft was really too heavy, and our engineers have worked together to produce a superior craft for 2008. We do have high hopes for the season."

The season's highꦫlight is the Cowes-Torquay-Cowes race on August 22-24, midway through the sꦅeason which features events in Italy, Marseilles, Malta, Tunisia, Spain, Portugal and Bahrain.