Dubai: The XDubai team of defending world champions Arif Al Zafein and Nader Bin Hindi waited until the dying seconds of Saturday’s pole position run to book top spot for Sunday’s UIM XCAT World Powerboat Series Cascais GP in Portugal.
In a fiercely-contested battle, the XDubai crew overtook Team Abu Dhabi with a fastest lap time of 2min 33.70sec with only seconds left in the session.
Their decision to go for one final lap paid off, with Al Zafein and Bin Hindi making the most of the wind having died down slightly, leaving the Abu Dhabi Team of Rashid Al Tayer and Falah Al Mansouri to start the race in second spot after a time of 2:35.46, while the French team Yachts with Francois Pinelli and Saul Bubacco on board will start third after a lap of 2:36.89.
Taking the final spot in the top gate for the first XCAT race in Portugal will be the T-Bone Station boat of Giovanni Carpitella and Marco Pennesi.
“The conditions changed a lot. It was getting better but at times the wind increased again so it was tough,” Al Zafein said afterwards.
“I felt that the very last minutes would be the best so we went to play our last chance and that’s when we got the last two seconds off our time that we needed and we got first place. It’s a very good race track. It’s more like a Formula 1 circuit.”
Speaking about Sunday’s race, which begins at 3pm (6pm UAE), Al Zafein added: “I think tomorrow there will be a lot of competition, especially for the drivers and not so much for the throttlemen. The start will not be easy because I have seen that all the boats are fast.
“Our concern is to stay as far ahead as possible of number five [Abu Dhabi Team], as they are still leading the championship and we need as many points as possible.”
Team Abu Dhabi, meanwhile, are confident they can get ahead of XDubai during the race. “The water was very rough today and we had a great, fun time. We were pushing very hard to finish first but XDubai pushed harder and they finished ahead of us, but it’s ok. We can do something in the race,” Al Tayer said.
“In the race anything can happen so it’s not finished yet. We will wait for the actual race.”
