Abu Dhabi slip behind Australia in Weihai race
weihai (china) — Team Abu Dhabi’s Rashed Al Tayer and Majed Al Mansoori lost the lead in the UIM XCAT World Championship after finishing in fifth place in the second race of the Weihai Grand Prix on China’s Yellow Sea on Sunday.
The team running out of the Abu Dhabi International Marine Sports Club (ADIMSC) lost ground from the start and were playing catch up throughout the race, as Team Australia’s Brett Luhrmann and Pal-Virik Nilsen delivered a second successive winning performance in Blue Roo to storm into contention for the XCAT title with a lead of three points at the season’s halfway point.
Team Abu Dhabi’s Emirati rivals in Victory 3 and Al Wasl rounded off the podium places, with Salem Al Adidi and Eisa Al Ali pipping former Victory Team drivers Arif Saif Al Zafeen and Nadir Bin Hendi to the runnerup spot when the latter took a long lap late on and lost out on second position.
“It wasn’t the result we wanted to be honest,” said Team Abu Dhabi’s Rashed Al Tayer. “I guess it was important to put as many points on the board as we could in a difficult race and make sure that there was no damage on the boat before next weekend. It’s still very close at the top of the points’ tables and its going to be exciting.”
The Italian-Australian pairing of Giovanni Carpitella and Darren Nicholson finished a strong fourth in Weihai-China 10 and the Swedish duo of Mikael Bengtsson and Erik Stark shadowed Team Abu Dhabi across the line in sixth place.
Earlier, Victory Team had been moved up from seventh to sixth at the expense of Caccia Engineering in the final results for race one when it came to light that the Italians had only run one long lap. The additional three points moved the Dubai team a single point behind Team Abu Dhabi and ahead of the Blue Roo in a tight points’ table.
The Australian outfit claimed pole position for the second race, courtesy of their win the previous day, and they lined up ahead of Weihai-China and Team Abu Dhabi for the race that was scheduled for a start lap, two long laps and 14 tours of the offshore course in better visibility than the previous day.