Mohammed Al Marri and Jean Marc Sanchez in Victory 77 won the Dubai Grand Prix in convincing style today (Friday) as Steve Curtis and Bard Eker in Spirit of Norway survived a major mechanical scare to clinch the 2005 UIM Class 1 Powerboat Championship.
Sponsored by Emirates Airline and Dubai Duty Free, the last round of a dramatic Class 1
season produced one final twist as Curtis and Eker, needing to finish the event to secure the world crown, thought they had lost it when one of their twin Lamborghini engines failed on the 11th lap.
While Victory 77 powered their way on to an emphatic start-to-finish success, Spirit limped through the next three laps they needed to finish in order to complete 70% of the 16-lap 90-nautical mile race and secure the three points that made them world champions.
Delighted Norwegians Jorn Tandberg and Christian Zaborowski in Jotun took second place, 38 seconds behind Victory 77, while England’s Chris Parsonage and American former world champion throttleman Randy Scism in Negotiator finished third, another 27 seconds away.
Celebrating a superb home victory which gave them the Middle East Championship as well as runner’s-up spot in the world title race, Al Marri and Sanchez quickly received a message of congratulations from H.H.Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.
Al Marri said: “We had only one thing on our minds, to win this race, and we got off to a great start and didn’t look back.” Sanchez added: “The plan was to go for it from the start. We wanted this win so badly. Now we’re looking forward to next season and I think we can take the world championship.”
Hugely relieved to have claimed his seventh Class 1 world title, Curtis admitted the engine failure had “absolutely frightened me to death.”. He said: “We had to do three more laps with one engine and I thought my worst fears were coming true.”
World champion for the first time, Eker said: “We didn’t plan to win it this way so it’s a little strange. But Steve and I never take anything for granted. You always know that anything can happen in this sport, and that’s the way it was today.
“This was really a year of learning for me because it’s my first season with the team, everything is new, and when we started I would have been happy to finish it with a place on the podium. But we had a big kick start to the season in Norway and after that we started to focus more on the No.1 spot.”
Nadir Bin Hindi and Rashid Al Mari in Victory 7, Giampaolo Montavoci and Domenico Cirilli in GFN Gibellato and Guiseppe Chillocci and Kristian Tzanov in Ceramiche Flaminia completed the top six.
Finishing a disappointing seventh after experiencing stop-start engine problems, Sheikh Hassan Al Thani and Italian throttleman Matteo Nicolini in Qatar 96 took third place overall in the world championship to add to the European title they secured earlier in the season. At the finish Sheikh Hassan said: “We had a good start and were in second position and going well for five laps before we had the engine problems. This last race was an experiment for us because we wanted to see how long the Mercury engines would last and we are learning about their strengths and their weaknesses.”
Dubai Grand Prix Results:
1 Victory 77 - Al Marri/Sanchez 53:59.32
2 Jotun - Tandberg/Zaborowski +38.65
3 Negotiator - Parsonage/Scism +1:05.82
4.Victory 7 - Hindi/Al Mari + 1:54.40
5 GFN Gibellato - Montavoci/Cirilli + 2:16.66
6. Ceramiche Flaminia - Chillocci/Tzanov + 1 lap
7. Qatar 96 – Al Thani/Nicolini +1 lap
8 Spirit of Norway - Eker/Curtis + 4 laps
UIM Class 1 Championship final positions
1 Spirit of Norway - Eker/Curtis 105.5 pts
2 Victory 77 - Al Marri/Sanchez 104 pts
3 Qatar 96 – Al Thani/Nicolini 81.75 pts
4 Negotiator - Parsonage/Scism 69.5 pts
5 Jotun - Tandberg/Zaborowski 45 pts
6. GFN Gibellato - Montavoci/Cirilli 44 pts
7 Victory 7 - Hindi/Al Mari 35.75 pts
8 Qatar 95 – Al Sulaiti/Di Biase 34 pts
9 Ceramiche Flaminia - Chillocci/Tzanov 21 pts
10 Maritimo – Barry-Cotter/McGrath 17pts (withdrawn)
11 Roscioli Hotels - Giorgi/Polli 12 pts
Middle East Championship final positions
1 Victory 77 - Al Marri/Sanchez 70 pts
2 Spirit of Norway - Eker/Curtis 61 pts
3 Negotiator - Parsonage/Scism 37 pts
4 Qatar 96 – Al Thani/Nicolini 35.5 pts
5 GFN Gibellato - Montavoci/Cirilli 31 pts
6 Jotun - Tandberg/Zaborowski 28 pts
7 Qatar 95 – Al Sulaiti/Di Biase 27 pts
8 Ceramiche Flaminia - Chillocci/Tzanov 19.5 pts
9 Victory 7 - Hindi/Al Mari 17.75 pts
10 Roscioli Hotels - Giorgi/Polli 15 pts
