Doha: Defending world champions Victory will go head-to-head with local favourites Qatar in the opening round of the 2009 UIM/WPPA Class One World Powerboat Championships at the Doha Bay this weekend.
The Dubai combination of Arif Saif Al Zafein and Nader Bin Hindi will team up in the newly named Fazaa 3 against the favoured Shaikh Hassan Bin Jaber Al Thani and Steve Curtis in Qatar 96. Al Zafein and Bin Hindi won the Doha race last year.
Ten boats will line up for the 21-lap, Qatar Marine Festival Grand Prix tomorrow - the first race of the season and the eleventh race to be held in the Qatari capital in eight years.
After winning the Class One World, EDOX Pole Position and Middle East titles in 2008, the Victory Team want their first grand slam back, while bitter rivals Team Qatar want their first world title.
The teams will have to get used to a raft of new rules governing the use of electronics and limited propeller choice, while the presence of some new and untried pairings will make the season opener a tough one to predict.
Another win tomorrow would be the team's fourth on Qatari waters as they aim for that elusive grand slam of all four titles in a season and termed by Victory's General Manager Gianfranco Venturelli, as "mission impossible". But giving the Fazaa 3 duo adequate cover will be the experienced Jean-Marc Sanchez along with rookie Mohammad Al Mehairi in Victory 1.
However, the greatest threat to Victory's aspirations is bound to come from the combination of Shaikh Hassan and Curtis, who has won in Qatar on five occasions in the past. And doubling up the home team challenge will be Matteo Nicolini and Abdullah Al Sulaiti in their Sterling V8-powered Qatar 95.
Also keen to mount a serious challenge and upset the two favoured teams will be defending European Champion Jorn Tandberg, who re-forms his winning partnership with fellow Norwegian, Christian Zaborowski, in their Mercury-Class 1, V8-powered scarlet MTI, Welmax.
Maritimo Australia is the third team fielding a two-boat line-up and will be hoping to repeat the success that team owner, Bill Barry-Cotter and Peter McGrath enjoyed in Doha, when they took their maiden Class 1 win at the first Grand Prix held in Qatar in 2002.
Tom Barry-Cotter and Pal Virik Nilsen form the youngest partnership in Class 1 but can boast the most races and cockpit time together of any driver-throttleman combination and will run their new hull Maritimo 11 with straight-talking Kiwi Peter McGrath and Italian, Giorgio Manuzzi, in Maritimo 12.
