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| AT THE PEARL: Abdulrahim al-Ibrahim, TCAD Director, The Pearl-Qatar, Jaume Marco, General Manager Ronautica Middle East, Herve Le Fauconnier Marina Director Ronautica Middle East, QMSF general secretary Sami Abdullah Abu Shaikha and Sheikh Hassan bin Jabor al-Thani, president of QMSF (C) pose with other dignitaries in front of the Spirit of Qatar 96 boat after a press conference to announce the The UIM Class 1 World Powerboat Championship ‘Pearl of Qatar Grand Prix 2012’ yesterday |
The UIM Class 1 World Powerboat Championship is back in Qatar and it will be held from March 15th to17, it was announced here yesterday.
The Qatar Marine Sports Federation has tied up with Pearl Qatar for this season and the race will be called Pearl of Qatar Grand Prix.
Addressing a press conference, QMSF President Sheikh Hassan bin Jabor al-Thani said:
“The race will be held near the waters at Pearl and the Pearl management will be allowing us to utilise their facilities. The plan is to have a boat service for spectators so that they can get close to the boats docked at the Pearl Marina.
“The race course will be outside the Pearl. We will have agreements with the restaurants in Pearl-Qatar so people can watch the race action on big screens, while enjoying the weather at Pearl.”
Sheikh Hassan added that the contract, as of now, is for this year only.
“It’s a one-year contract as of now but at the end of the race we shall sit and evaluate and decide on the future prospects.”
QMSF once again will be fielding two boats Spirit of Qatar 95 and Spirit of Qatar 96 for this season and have also retained the entire crew. Ali al-Neama and Matteo Nicolini will be seen in action on Spirit of Qatar 95, while Sheikh Hassan and Steve Curtis will try their luck with Spirit of Qatar 96.
“The performance from the team last season was satisfactory and so we will be sticking with the same team. There has not been much to do with the boat either. We will have testing on Feb 6 and 7. Then we will have further testing. If everything is fine after seeing the test results, we will take it up from there,” said Sheikh Hassan, whose Spirit of Qatar 96 finished second in the championship with 93 points behind UAE’s Victory, who had 103.
Steering problems hampered Spirit of Qatar 96 chances towards the end of last season but Sheikh Hassan is confident he can put up a good show this time round.
“We have not done any modification on the boats. We feel the boats we used at the end of last year are very competitive and perfect. We will be testing new gears, nothing more.
“The breakdown was not related to engine failure but more of a spinning wheel problem. We have reworked the whole thing and made sure the same issues do not crop up again. We preformed to our expectations last year. We were fastest Dubai, Norway and Italy,” added Sheikh Hassan, whose main challengers will be the Victory Team from UAE, who won last year’s championship.
It is also learnt that the UAE team will be fielding a new boat for this season.
“The first race will be the decisive factor for the season. The team that performs better on the day will win in Qatar. Victory is building a new boat, so we don’t know how good and big that boat is. We are ready for the championship. We have a good team and the best set up and I’m banking on that,” said a confident Sheikh Hassan.