Aalborg, Denmark: Team Abu Dhabi’s Rashed Al Qemzi and Rashed Al Tayer saw all their hard work in qualifying come to nothing after race officials were left with no alternative other than to cancel the Grand Prix of Denmark, the second round of the UIM F2 World Championship, because of hazardous weather conditions on Aalborg’s Limfjord.

The first race at the venue in 30 years started as planned, but a heavy crash involving American Brent Dillard brought out the yellow flag almost immediately and drivers admitted that there was a severe wind chop on the course.

A decision was taken to bring the remaining boats back to the start pontoon.

After a lengthy delay and discussions, officials were left with no alternative but to cancel the race meeting for safety reasons.

Al Qemzi said: “I was happy with the boat all through the qualifying sessions and it was a matter of keeping it going for the race. But safety must always come first and this was a decision that was made with careful thought to the race conditions.”

Six drivers had been given the opportunity to qualify for the Grand Prix in a 15-minute Repecharge race on Sunday morning. Frode Sundsdal, Uvis Slakteris, Nick Bisterfeld, Sebastien Haugaard, Gavin Bricker and Mansour Al Mansouri made it through to the main Grand Prix at the rear of the 20-boat field.

Al Qemzi and Al Tayer lined up in pole and tenth positions for the start of the race — amid overcast and windy conditions on the Limfjord following some rain.

Germany’s Stefan Hagin made a storming start to snatch the lead and the German began to pull away through the opening turns until the yellow flag was raised with Hagin leading from Daniel Segenmark, Ferdinand Zandbergen, Al Tayer and Al Qemzi, Al Tayer making up six places from the start.

Brent Dillard was the man involved in the yellow flag incident and the American was sidelined after flipping his boat out of contention in the wind.

Racing could have restarted on lap four but the original start was declared void with a red flag and drivers returned to the start pontoon and reverted to their pole qualifying order.

Al Qemzi regained his advantage from Tobias Munthe-Kaas and Hagin, while Al Tayer was pushed back to ninth place.

But there was a substantial time delay while race officials waited for conditions to improve, with a cut-off of 3pm looming for organisers and officer of the day Pelle Larsson unless a new race permit could be issued to extend the duration of the race.

Unfortunately, a decision soon followed to cancel the race weekend, making it the third race to be cancelled on the UIM F2 calendar in two seasons.

Action in the UIM F2 World Championship resumes with the Grand Prix of Norway in Tønsberg on August 5-6.