Aalborg, Denmark: Team Abu Dhabi’s Rashed Al Qemzi is giving UIM F1 H2O Grand Prix of London a miss to take part in this weekend’s Grand Prix of Denmark, the second round of the UIM F2 World Championship, scheduled on the same weekend.

Al Qemzi, who clinched the prestigious F2 title last year in Portugal, teams up with Rashed Al Tayer for the weekend’s race that is being staged on Limfjord between the two parts of the city of Aalborg. Aalborg lies to the south of the fjord and Nørresundby lies to the north.

The Emiratis endured mixed fortunes in the first round of the well-supported F2 series in Kaunas, Lithuania, last month. Al Qemzi finished fourth behind Italy’s Alberto Comparato, local driver Edgaras Riabko and Germany’s Stefan Hagin to claim nine valuable championship points. Al Tayer on the other hand, was running strongly and setting impressive lap times, but he crashed out of the race and failed to pick up any points from a series opener that saw 28 boats battling for supremacy on Kaunas Reservoir.

With Sweden’s Mette Bjerknaes and Portugal’s Duarte Benavente missing the Danish race to take part in the F1 H2O round in London and Italy’s Ivan Brigada and David Del Pin also reportedly absent, the door is open for the likes of Comparato, Riabko, Hagin and Norway’s Tobias Munthe-Kaas to challenge the Team Abu Dhabi duo for the podium places on the Limfjord course.

Spaniard Héctor Sanz crashed heavily at the last round and visited the DAC factory in Italy en route from Riba Roja d’Ebre in Catalunya to Denmark to collect his rebuilt boat this week. Along with the likes of American Brent Dillard, the Swedish trio of Daniel Segenmark, Oskar Samuelsson and Johan Österberg, Norway’s Frode Sundsdal and the Victory Team’s Mansour Al Mansouri, Sanz will be hoping to kick-start his campaign with a top finish in what promises to be a thrilling spectacle on Danish waters.

“I made a solid start in Lithuania and managed to put some points on the board,” said Team Abu Dhabi’s Al Qemzi. “There is a big field of boats this year and it is important to get the right set-up quickly and deliver a good performance in qualifying. Drivers are very closely matched and any small mistake can be costly.”