Dubai: Former multiple world champion Arif Saif Al Zafein teamed up with Scott Williams to thrown down a strong challenge to the rest of the field at the end of first official practice at the Weihai Grand Prix, round 2 of the 2017 UIM XCAT World Championship, on the Nanhai New District Bay, on Friday.
Al Zafein, who has teamed up with good friend Nadir Bin Hindi to win all of his five world titles in this racing class in the past five season, took his Al Wasl boat over 14 laps to be clocked with the best time of 2 minutes, 28.449 seconds. Second best on the day was the Aussie-Norwegian pairing of Brett Luhrmann and Pal Virik Nilsen in The Blue Roo with a time of 2:29.697, while early overall leaders Salem Al Adidi and Eisa Al Ali of the Victory Team were third quickest with 2:30.382 minutes.
Fourth best on the tight circuit was the Weihai/China duo of Giovanni Carpitella and Darren Nicholson with a time of 2:30.857, while the Team Abu Dhabi pair of Rashid Al Tayer and Majid Al Mansouri completed the top-five in a time of 2:32.669.
Victory Team’s Al Adidi was not too concerned with the times clocked by their boat. “We have faith in what we do, and we have a dedicated team backing us all through. We thought we needed to make some changes with an eye on the rest of the season and that’s why we decided to experiment with other engine set-ups,” Al Adidi told Gulf News.
“Overall the practice was very comfortable as we got the opportunity to try out something new and fresh on our boat and we are happy with the way the boat has been responding. Today was about experimenting and so we didn’t push too much. The real deal will be to go all out for the pole position, and that is going to be our target,” he promised.
Al Adidi and Al Ali have made a strong start to the season winning both the races in Zhengzhou after leading from start-to-finish. This gives the boat from Dubai a 10-point advantage over Team Abu Dhabi’s Rashid Al Tayer and Majid Al Mansouri coming into Weihai City. Luhrmann and Nilsen are in third overall, but still lagging behind by 22 points from Victory Team followed by Caccia Engineering, 222 Offshore and Fujairah Team.
Saturday’s qualifying session will be split into three sessions with all eleven boats allowed to take to the water for the opening session at 10am (6am UAE). The third and final session will pit the fastest three boats with the topper earning the right to start in pole in the first of two Weihai races at 2pm (10am).
An additional free practice is permitted on Sunday morning followed by the second race at 10am UAE time on Sunday.
After this weekend’s third and fourth races in the four-round, eight-race series, the boats will travel to Hangzhou for the next two races of the championship.
