Dubai: Victory Team’s pairing of Salem Al Adidi and Eisa Al Ali repeated their Saturday’s success story with a second straight win in Race Two of the Zhengzhou Grand Prix — the opening round of the 2017 UIM XCAT World Championship, on Sunday.
The Dubai-based team duo finished clear of fellow Emiratis Rashid Al Tayer and Majid Al Mansouri in their Team Abu Dhabi boat to lead a fine one-two finish for UAE teams on the Longhu Lake.
In gloomy conditions, the Dubai-based crew led from start-to-finish to hold off the challenge from their great Emirati rivals for the second successive day to take an early advantage in the eight-race 2017 UIM XCAT World Championship. Australian Brett Luhrmann and Norway’s Pal-Virik Nilsen did one better than their fourth place finish to round off the podium places in their boat, Blue Roo.
The experienced pairing of Giovanni Carpitella and Joakhim Kumlin finished fourth in their 222 Offshore boat while the Italian pairing of Serafino Baresi and Alessandro Barone completed the top five in their Fujairah Racing 20 boat.
Multiple world champion Aref Saif Al Zafe’in, who has teamed up with Great Britain’s Scott Williams, did well to work their way up through the standings to secure ninth place and claim vital points.
“We are really satisfied with this result as this is what we have been working for through the off-season. It is always good to start strong in any championship so that we can carry forward the momentum for the remainder of the races,” Al Adidi told Gulf News.
“The team has done a wonderful job with the boat and it was up to us to keep it steady despite the pressure being put on us by Rashid [Al Tayer] and Majid [Al Mansouri]. We are extremely pleased to go into the next round with maximum points,” he added.
“It would have been nice to take a win this weekend, but we have started the XCAT championship well and that is what matters for us to head into the next round with two strong finishes while putting ourselves in a good position to maintain the challenge for the title over the next couple of weeks,” said Team Abu Dhabi’s Al Tayer.
The Zhengzhou Grand Prix marks a welcome return to the calendar for offshore racing after the UIM Class One racing series failed to find a regular promoter and the UIM took control of XCAT racing and announced a four-round calendar comprising of a total of eight races.
Now being run under the auspices of world governing body UIM, the second of three back-to-back Chinese races will move to Weihei from October 20 to 22 and then on to Xiamen (October 27-29), after which the eleven boats will head to Dubai for the season-finale in the first week of December.
