Ben Jelf

Ben Jelf (born 2000) is a British powerboat racer from Maidstone, Kent. He competes in the F1H2O World Championship and is Britain's youngest world champion in powerboat racing, having won the GT15 World Championship at age 11 in 2011. He has won 17 British Championship titles and holds multiple British speed records.

Early life and family Jelf comes from the Jelf Racing family, a three-generation powerboat racing dynasty. Jelf began racing at age nine, following his grandfather, father and uncle into the sport.

Jelf accumulated four European Championship titles in the GT15 class during his junior career. and securing the GT30 European Championship in 2014. By 2018, he had claimed his 14th and 15th British Championship titles. He surpassed the time set in 1984 by Tom Percival running a Hodges boat powered by a 3.5-litre Evinrude engine by 0.64 seconds. He finished 15th in the 2022 championship standings.

In 2025, Jelf opened his campaign with double bronze trophies at Lake Toba, Indonesia, finishing third in both Sprint Race 1 and the Grand Prix. He sat third in the championship standings after Indonesia.

At the penultimate round in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in late November, Jelf finished seventh in the Grand Prix and moved to joint-11th in the championship standings. He finished 13th in the final 2025 championship standings. He worked with his father Colin testing and developing the Mercury 200APX engine and boat setup throughout his British Championship campaigns.

Other racing activities Jelf has competed in the German powerboat series (2018), French Championship (2022), and the 24-hour Rouen endurance race (2019). In 2022, he competed as a navigator in OCRDA with Max Walker and was invited to race for Team Amaravati as an F4 driver at the F1H2O Grand Prix of India.