Abu Dhabi: Team Abu Dhabi has committed to a full season of racing in the 2015 UIM Skydive Dubai XCAT World Series and will take part in the opening round of the championship in Fujairah this weekend.
Rashid Al Tayer and Faleh Al Mansouri will represent the team, which is based at the Abu Dhabi International Marine Sports Club (ADIMSC) and is supported by Etihad Airways as official carrier and sponsor and runs under the patronage of Dr Shaikh Sultan Bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, advisor to the Head of State and chairman of the board of directors of the ADIMSC.
Al Tayer and Al Mansouri have already taken part in a Class 1 racing programme together and entered the recent UIM Qatar Cup in Doha. To get a taste for the new discipline of XCAT racing, two Team Abu Dhabi boats were permitted to enter the last round of the 2014 series, where Al Tayer and Al Mansouri finished ninth and Ahmad Al Hameli and Scott Gillman were 12th.
Outright victory in the final Dubai race and the overall 2014 five-race calendar fell to Fazza’s Arif Saif Al Zafeen and Nadir Bin Hindi. The pair finished 411 points in front of Dubai’s Salem Ali Al Adidi and American team-mate Jay Price. T-Bone Station’s Italian crew of Luca Formilli Fendi and Giovanni Carpitella were a distant third.
Organised by the World Professional Powerboat Association (WPPA), this year’s UIM XCAT series has been expanded to a potential eight races, with Fujairah hosting the opening round this weekend and new races on Australia’s Gold Coast and Cascais in Portugal entering the calendar before the ADIMSC hosts the final round of the championship for the first time on November 25-27.
“We are thrilled to be involved in the XCAT World Series in this way,” said Salem Al Rumaithi of the ADIMSC. “We were already represented by two boats in the final round last year, but now we are looking forward to hosting the final round and having our own team at every race in the calendar.”
Teams will now use new environment-friendly four-stroke engines. The Fujairah race will also mark the first time that a female driver has entered an XCAT race, following the news that Sweden’s Veronica Olderin will line up for the new Swecat Racing Team alongside series regulars like Al Zafeen and Bin Hindi and a host of last year’s title contenders.
Three days of administration, testing, qualifying and racing getsunderway on Wednesday and culminates with Friday’s Fujairah Grand Prix on a demanding course laid on by the Fujairah International Marine Club.
