Team Abu Dhabi's Faleh Al Mansoori and Rashed Al Tayer finished fifth in the opening race of the shortened 2014 UIM Class One World Powerboat Championship at the Mediterranean Grand Prix off the Playa D'en Bossa coast of the Spanish island of Ibiza on Saturday and Sunday.
A comfortable race one win fell to Arif Saif Al Zafeen and Nadir bin Hendi in Victory 3 and they repeated the feat in Sunday's second race to seal an Ibiza 1-2 in hot, sunny conditions.
Al Mansoori and Al Tayer pushed hard through the latter stages of the first race and passed the chequered flag in third position, only to be pushed down to fifth when a 25-second time penalty was awarded after the race when it came to light that their new MTi boat had struck a course turn buoy.
Victory 3 qualified on pole position for the first of the weekend's two races with a quickest lap of 2min 46.45sec after tying with Giovanni Carpitella and Luca Formilli-Fendi in LFF10. Al Mansoori and Al Tayer ran the MTi for six laps and recorded a best time of 2min 58.53sec on their final lap and slotted into sixth position for the race start.
In Race 1, The Team Abu Dhabi duo was running well in the race that was dominated by Victory 3. Al Zafeen and Bin Hendi reached the chequered flag after 13 laps with a 49-second lead over runners-up Guido Cappellini and Mikhail Kitashev in Newstar-Poliform 74. Al Mansoori and Al Tayer were deprived of third position after the race when they were awarded a 25-second penalty for hitting a turn buoy.
This handed third back to Ugur Isik and Christian Zaborowski in Relekta-Zabo-Isiklar 91, despite the fact that Team Abu Dhabi had overtaken them on the final lap. The penalty also pushed Team Abu Dhabi down to fifth behind LFF8-Polimersam. Carpitella and Fendi lost a comfortable second position when they stopped on lap nine with gearbox issues.
In Race 2, Team Abu Dhabi found a useful pace in Sunday's second qualifying session and recorded a potent lap of two minutes 46.68sec to slot into second position behind Victory 3. Fendi and Carpitella were forced to miss the second race, as they were unable to source a replacement gearbox in time.
Team Abu Dhabi were not able to finish their Ibiza weekend with a podium finish in the second of the races, but Victory 3 continued where they left off on Saturday to seal a second win in the 16-lap race. Relekta-Zabo-Isiklar 91 was second, 28.99 seconds behind, and Newstar-Poliform 74 finished third. Victory 3 was the fastest of the five boats that took to the water for first official practice on Friday. Al-Zafeen and Bin Hendi recorded a fastest lap of 2min 51.29sec. Team Abu Dhabi missed the session to concentrate on preparing the new MTi and it was a similar story in the second official practice session. –
Source: Khaleej Times