Fujairah: This weekend will be all about acceleration, according to defending UIM XCAT World Powerboating Series champions Victory Team.

The pair of Aref Al Zaf’ein and Nader Bin Hindi are looking forward to taking the sport to another level when the new Mercury four-stroke engines make their debut at the opening round of the series in Fujairah on April 7-8.

Ragesh Elayadeth, Victory Team Manager, is of the opinion that the new engines’ acceleration capability is what will make things interesting for the season-opener. “We haven’t tested much. We did a shakedown yesterday. And we had to do some minor modifications. We are optimistic as always,” Elayadeth said.

“It’s a new engine – it’s a torque engine so everyone is the same in this matter. No one has any advantage. These are very powerful engines, very reliable, and economically it’s good for the teams and environmentally it’s more friendly. So we will have better performance than last year,” he added.

“It’s good for the teams and good for the sport. The new engines are faster but won’t reach top speeds on a tight course so it’s more about the acceleration. It is much better than the previous engines so it’s going to be more interesting,” Elayadath said.

He said that any bad memories of last year’s season-opening race in Fujairah, when one of their engines caught fire – ruling them out of contention – were unlikely to resurface at the weekend.

“The past is past. We’re looking ahead to the next race. Whatever happened in the last race doesn’t bother us. We’ve done our homework. We are here to win the race so hopefully we’ll win it,” he confided.

A total of 11 of the 14 boats have been fitted with the new four-stroke engines for this weekend’s race taking place at the Fujairah International Marine Club, where entry for the general public is free of charge. Under the parity rule, those boats participating with two-stroke engines will be allowed to race with 100kg less ballast than those using four-stroke engines to level the playing field.

The Abu Dhabi International Marine Sports Club has entered two boats for the race. Rashid Al Qamzi and Majid Al Mansouri will crew Team Abu Dhabi 4, while Faleh Al Mansouri and Rashid Al Tayer will race in Team Abu Dhabi 5.

“We are confident that we can win,” said Al Tayer, who won the race in Fujairah last season.

“This is our only goal, so we are optimistic that we will do something special in Fujairah and finish first. We know the competition is going to be tough, but we have prepared well and everyone is looking forward to the new season. The XCAT World Series title is one that evaded us last year and one that is top of our list of priorities in 2016,” he added.

The XCAT World Series will be fought out over a minimum of five rounds in Fujairah, Dubai, Lugano, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, with the possibility of another two races in Asia in September and October.

The first official practice will take place at 1pm Wednesday while the revised format race for Pole Position will get under way at 10.30am on Thursday, followed by the head-to-head Dubai Duty Free Speed Cat Run at 3pm. The main race – the Fujairah GP – will take place from 3.30pm on Friday.