SHARJAH: With a second successive UIM F1 H20 World Championship title already in the bag after victory in Abu Dhabi last Friday afternoon, the Qatar Team’s Alex Carella heads to the final round of the series in Sharjah this weekend in relaxed mood.
The QMSF-backed team has again been a dominant force in the series this year and Carella has also won the UIM F1 H20 Pole Position championship with one race remaining.
He and new team-mate Terry Rinker will be able to push hard from the start of the two days of action on Sharjah’s Khaled Lagoon, without the need to conserve their boats or worry about the outcome of the title race. But there is one title that still eludes the Qatar-based team this season and that is the UIM F1 H20 Teams’ Championship that Qatar won last season.
Team Abu Dhabi arrives in Sharjah with 95 points, three more than the Qatar Team and 25 more than the CTIC China Team.
With Thani Al Qamzi and Majed Al Mansoori determined to end their season with silverware, both Carella and Rinker will be mindful that they face a difficult challenge to retain the championship.
“We can have fun and enjoy the final weekend’s racing without the pressure of trying to conserve the boats to win the championship,” 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.
“But we would also like to win the Teams’ Championship to complete the clean sweep.”
With the recent news from H20 Racing that Sri Lanka will join the list of races in the 2013 calendar, this marine sporting discipline is firmly on the ascendancy and 23 drivers from 15 countries tackled the race in Abu Dhabi last Friday.
Officials are expecting the same number to enter the race in Sharjah, where the Qatar Team will again lock horns with Frenchman Phillipe Chiappe and Finland’s Sami Selio, both drivers looking to finish second in the Drivers’ Championship. Chiappe heads to Sharjah with a four-point lead over his Finnish rival.
Qatar’s former World Champion Jay Price will be hoping to make up for the disappointment of an early retirement from his return race last weekend and Britain’s Malcolm Goodman, who represented the Qatar Team in 2009, showed the potential of his new Dragon boat last weekend and will be hoping for a finish to end the year.
Khalid Abdullah Al Kuwari represents the Qatar Team in the UIM F-4S Championship for the Eurofin Trophy. The Qatari holds outright fifth in the points’ standings with two races remaining, but all eyes will be on Sweden’s in-form Jesper Forss and England’s Matthew Palfreyman. Forss heads to Sharjah with a 15-point lead in the series.
Team registration, scrutineering and an optional practice session will be permitted on Wednesday (December 5) and the first of the F1 practice sessions gets underway from 09.15hrs (08.15hrs Doha time) on Thursday morning.
The F-4S boats take to the water from 10.30hrs for practice, time trials and the first of their two 20-minute races and F1 qualifying starts at 15.50hrs (14.50hrs Doha time). THE PENINSULA
