ABU DHABI, UAE: Qatar’s Alex Carella retained his UIM F1 H20 World Championship title in dramatic circumstances yesterday afternoon’s 21st Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi, the penultimate round of the 2012 UIM F1 H20 World Championship.
Leading from the start of a race that had already been halted by two yellow flag situations, race officials decided to stop the race for good with eight laps remaining following an incident which damaged two of the course turn buoys.
With insufficient time remaining to repair the course, the race finished under a third yellow flag, but no-one could deny that the Qatar Team and Alex Carella had deserved another world title – a third for the QMSF-backed team in five glorious years.
Terry Rinker drove well on his Qatar Team debut and reached the finish in eighth position and offered good support to Carella. Team Abu Dhabi’s Thani Al-Qamzi finished second and Finland’s Sami Selio was third, but fourth place for Frenchman Phillipe Chiappe meant that Carella cannot be caught with one race remaining in Sharjah next weekend.
“I am really happy for the whole team, for Alex, for Sheikh Hassan and everyone at the QMSF,” admitted a delighted Khalid bin Arhama Al Kuwari, head of formula racing at the QMSF, which runs under the presidency of Sheikh Hassan bin Jabor Al Thani.
“It is a fantastic feeling for the team to secure the title for the second time in Abu Dhabi and we can now go to Sharjah next week with no pressure and enjoy the racing. Even without Shaun (Torrente) we proved that we are still a strong team.”
Qatar’s Khalid Abdullah Al Kuwari qualified sixth for the second of the UIM F-4S races and eventually finished in fifth position in a race where Sweden’s Jesper Forss recorded his second win of the weekend to extend his lead in the championship over Britain’s Matthew Palfreyman to 15 points. Hungary’s Viktor Vo finished a career-best second.
The Qatar duo of Carella and Rinker began the race from pole and fifth places among the 22-boat field on the 2.2km, six-pin Abu Dhabi course.
A good start was essential if Carella was going to clinch the title with one race to spare.
The Qatar Team driver surged into a 2.34sec lead at the end of lap one, with Al Qamzi and Jonas Andersson holding second and third before a yellow flag was raised when Xiong Ziwei stopped on the course.
Rinker had slipped to sixth, but the boats were put back into their starting positions before the restart on lap five.
Carella fended off a challenge from Al Qamzi to maintain his lead and Rinker slotted into sixth behind Chiappe, Selio and Andersson. After 10 laps, Carella had extended his lead to five seconds and Rinker began to pressurise Andersson for fifth position.
Qatar’s former World Champion Jay Price stopped on lap 12 and the race was yellow-flagged for the second time.
Price had started at the rear of the field after an engine problem on Thursday afternoon and suffered a similar fate in the race.
The green flag was raised on lap 17 of 40 and Al Qamzi initially snatched the advantage, only for Carella to regain the lead at turn one. The Qatar driver took advantage of clear water to extend his lead to 4.02 seconds through lap 19. Rinker slipped to eighth.
With Selio in third and Chiappe in fourth, Carella knew that he could win the world title in Abu Dhabi and he extended his advantage to 5.97 seconds after lap 22.
The lead had risen to 7.34 seconds through lap 25, but Yousef Al-Rubayan spun out of the race and damaged a turn buoy on lap 29 and the yellow flag was raised again. There was insufficient time to replace two damaged turn buoys in the remaining time and the race finished eight laps early under a yellow flag situation.
THE PENINSULA
