2005 UIM CLASS 1 WORLD POWER BOAT CHAMPIONSHIP
QATAR GRAND PRIX, November 10th-12th, 2005 – round 5 of 7
For immediate release
Friday, November 11th, 2005
QATAR 96 TAKES THIRD PLACE
IN POLE POSITION RACE IN DOHA
Spirit of Norway takes fifth consecutive Pole win;
Victory 77 in second place; Qatar 95 in fifth
DOHA (Qatar): His Excellency Sheikh Hassan Bin Jabor Al-Thani and Italian throttleman Matteo Nicolini finished third overall in the Pole Position competition for the second Qatar Grand Prix, round five of this year’s UIM Class 1 World Power Boat Championship.
The Anglo-Norwegian pairing of Steve Curtis and Bard Eker took their fifth consecutive victory of the season in Spirit of Norway, with last weekend’s Qatar Grand Prix winners Victory 77 in second place.
~Third was not too bad for me today, but it could have been much better,~ said Sheikh Hassan. ~Now I hope that Victory 77 gets as good a start in tomorrow’s race as they did in Monday’s. We need them to push Spirit all the way and put them under pressure, I made some changes and we swapped propeller settings, but the changeable wind conditions were not easy.
~I will need a totally new strategy for the race tomorrow. It will be interesting and we will use the practice session in the morning to come up with a good boat set-up. The priority will be to maintain our championship lead before the final two races in Dubai in December.~
Qatar 96 will start ahead of tje fourth-placed Jotun boat, with Qatar 95 team mates Abdullah Al-Sulaiti and Lino di Biase finishing in fifth place today, ahead of the British Negotiator boat, crewed by Chris Parsonage and American Randy Scism.
The Dubai-based Victory team were unable to refettle the damaged Victory 7 boat in time to take the start of the Pole Position race and the team will not start Saturday’s main race.
The Qatar 96 boat had begun the second Pole Position competition in less than a week in Doha Bay, 26 points behind the Anglo-Norwegian pairing of Steve Curtis and Bard Eker in Spirit of Norway and were keen to eat into their rival’s lead, amassed after four 100% scores on the opening four rounds. They now trail Spirit of Norway by 34 points with two rounds remaining.
The second Qatar Grand Prix gets underway in Doha on Saturday afternoon.
Ends
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and Nigel Quilter, Press Officer, UIM Class 1 World Powerboat Championship
Mobile: + 44 7785 325346, e-mail: q@q4media.com
www.class-1.com
www.qmsf.org