Dubai: Teams from the UAE are hopeful of a much better performance ahead of the second round of the 2017 UIM F1 H2O World Championships to be held in Evian, France on July 1-2.
The opening round of the 34th season of the F1 powerboat series concluded in Portimao in the Algarve region of Portugal on Sunday with all the UAE teams coming up well short of expectations.
Both the Victory Team boats limped out with Ahmad Al Hameli leading the exit just after qualifying in second place followed by pole position winner Shaun Torrente by the tenth lap of the 50-lap race on the 1,937 metre course set on the Arade River.
And Team Abu Dhabi, who had entered a strong entry line-up of three boats, saw only former world champion Alex Carella finish with points following a well-fought fourth place to take nine points for his team in a race that was won by CTIC F1 Shenzhen China’s three-time world champion Philippe Chiappe.
Carella’s two teammates Thani Al Qamzi and rookie Rashid Al Qamzi had gone out early in the race with damaged engines. And though he qualified in fifth, Carella was forced to start off from 15th due to an engine change. But the Italian driver continued chasing down the lead pack to claw back into fourth after Bartek Marszalek was handed a one-lap penalty for bursting a buoy towards the end of the race.
Despite the setbacks, both teams remained upbeat for the future.
“This was an unusual race with as many as ten boats sitting out due to broken engines. We were pushing very hard to figure out the problem all along, and to finish in fourth place was really such a huge achievement for us,” Salim Al Rumaithi, Chairman, Team Abu Dhabi, told Gulf News.
“This was a good race for us and an entirely different experience as well. We’ve got to look ahead and the next race in France will be a good place to set things right,” he added.
Former multiple world champion Scott Gillman, who is running the Victory Team set-up this season, also remained hopeful. “Our boats are very strong and we will be there at the top in the next race in Evian,” the American said.
“Be sure, we will be ready for the Grand Prix of France,” he added.
Gillman’s countryman Torrente, who started the race from pole position, also remained upbeat despite the disappointment of limping out with engine trouble approaching the tenth lap. “We were really fast and the boats are really good this year. The power is really good,” he noted.
“We only had an unfortunate part failure and that happens. Overall I am upset, but I am excited to continue the season as we have the performance now to beat everybody heads up. We don’t need any luck. We don’t need anything. We just need to run our races, and that’s all we are going to do from now till Evian,” Torrente added.
