QMMF Racing’s Mashel al-Naimi celebrates on the podium after coming third at the Superbike European Championship in Albacete, southeast of Madrid.
Agencies/Madrid
It was a milestone day for QMMF Racing yesterday in Spain, with two of their riders involved in the Superbike European Championship, taking a major leap forward on raceday at Albacete, southeast of Madrid.
Mashel al-Naimi made his Spanish Championship debut ten years ago, beginning a sporting career in Spain that has now reached a new high. The Qatari rider took third and fifth place in yesterday’s two Superbike races, in which he showed his talent and took home the trophy for best privateer.
The excellent results for Mashel was backed up by Saeed al-Sulaiti, who also showed significant improvement. He was up into eighth place at one point, before mechanical issues prevented him from defending the position.
Al-Naimi was ecstatic with his showing. “I am very happy. Today we won three trophies here in Albacete: One for third place in the Superbike class, and another two for the two victories in the privateers category. We have had a great weekend, in which from the beginning we saw that we could fight for the top positions. I hope we can continue at this level and keep fighting at the front until the end of the season,” he said.
The Qatari rider was gunning for the next race and also for the privateers title. “I could not participate in the race at Portimao, so I had some disadvantage compared to the other riders, who are at a high level. But I will prepare for the coming races very well in order to have the opportunity to fight for the privateers title. I want to thank the team for the work they have done and QMMF for giving me the opportunity to compete in the Superbike European Championship. I want to dedicate the trophies I won today in Albacete to my country and hopefully bring more trophies home in the next few races,” al-Naimi added,
Meanwhile, al-Sulaiti rued his electrical problem, which derailed his race. “First of all I want to congratulate Mashel. He has done an awesome job this weekend to get on the podium twice. My start was not good in the first race but I was able to move up from 14th place to 8th. It was then that an electrical problem appeared, and that caused the bike to not respond well to the throttle and gradually I began to lose positions. Luckily the chequered flag came quickly and I was able to finish in 12th position.
“After the first race we had an hour to solve the problem and the team did a great job changing absolutely everything possible to fix it. However, luck was not on our side today and in the second race the problem appeared again.
“Although we decided to remove the traction control, the problem would not go away and we decided to retire to avoid suffering a crash. We have done a good job during the weekend, we are working in the right direction and I hope that in the next race we can take another step forward. I want to thank the team for their excellent work and also QMMF Racing for the opportunity to be competing here,” al-Sulaiti added
Team Coordinator Luis R Solano was of the opinion al-Naimi was prepared to fight to be amongst the top five in the rest of the races this season.
“Mashel has taken a huge leap forward this weekend. He finally believes he can be up at the front and this has helped him achieve the results of this weekend. I think he is now prepared to fight to be amongst the top five in the rest of the races this season and reach our goal -which is to win the fight for best privateer.
As for al-Sulaiti, Solano said he was showing a lot of improvement. “Unfortunately Saeed suffered an electrical problem on his bike that prevented him from showing his progression.
“He is a step behind Mashel, but we are very happy with the effort being made and, above all, by his desire to keep improving in every race. Today was an important day in which we had very positive results, which were well-deserved for both the Qatari federation, Mashel, Saeed and the team.”
