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By John Verghese
THE stage is set for thrills and spills when the Qatar National Road Racing Championship (QNRRCH) for cars and the Qatar International Road Racing Championship (QIRRCH) for bikes is held at the Losail International Circuit today.
With both the events making their debut in Qatar this year, the Qatar Motor and Motorcycling Federation (QMMF) will have sufficient activities to keep them busy right through the year to go along with the national rally, sprint, superbike, supersport, motogp and endurance championships.
While the QNRRCH will have five rounds, the QIRRCH will feature six races in the annual calendar.
The five-lap race for today’s competition in the cars category has attracted 13 entries and the bikes competition has 39 participants on superbike and supersport vehicles. The bikes competition features 32 Qatari participants and seven foreign riders. Mishal al-Naimi, who finished third along with Ivan Silva and Victor Carrasco in the Qatar leg of the 2007 World Endurance Championship, Sultan al-Naimi as well as Talal al-Naimi are prominent local entries in the segment.
As well as a couple of private entries, the riders will represent Qatar Moto, J&L, MNM, Extreme Bike, NBK Green Racing, Al Anabi, Future Bike, Redline Racing, VMAX Racing UAE and the Qatar Bike teams in the supersport and superbike races. Carsten Winter, Mark Schuesser (Germany), Anthony Jordan, Tim Stevens, Christopher Bell (all from UK), Zoltan Lajko (Hungary) and Ahmed al-Lanjawi (UAE) make up the international flavour.
QMMF president Nasser bin Khalifa al-Attiyah has said that the national road racing championship for cars has been included in the calendar responding to the requests from local drivers.
“The championship has been created on the request of local drivers who wanted a road racing event for cars as a competition for bikes was already in existence,” he said.
“We are proud to organise this event and in contributing to develop the skills of local drivers. In the coming years we are hoping for greater support for the championship from local distributors of international car manufacturing companies,” he added.
Referring to the international road racing championship for bikes, the QMMF president hoped that the Qatari riders would showcase the best of their abilities as the event would serve as a trial to select the best three riders who will receive support from the QMMF to train in France.
“We were able to get only a couple of foreign riders this time as it is the first year. But I am confident of having more foreign entries in the coming years. I am also happy that the Qatar event has got FIM approval for the next three years.”
“It is a nice feeling to contribute to guiding the youth into directing their energies onto the race track rather than speeding on the streets,” he said. “The main objective of such events is to bring together the residents of the country to enjoy action on the track.”
Today’s schedule:
Cars: Race (5 laps), 2.00 pm; Bikes: Supersport Race (15 laps), 2.45 pm; Superbike Race (15 laps), 3.45 pm onwards. |
