Fazza will start this afternoon’s fifth round of the UIM Skydive Dubai XCAT World Series in Pole Position after a mighty battle out on the water this morning.
Arif Al Zaffain and Mohammed Al Marri were the only team to dip under the 2 minute 26 second mark – in their final lap during the Emaar Pole Position race, finishing in 2.25,81. But top spot was far from a foregone conclusion with the lead switching hands between Fazza and their teammates Victory Team (Salem Al Adidi and Talib Al Sayed) on several occasions.
Victory Team will start this afternoon’s race (dubbed the European Grand Prix) in second position after recording a quickest lap of 2.26,23 with last week’s Italian Grand Prix winners, Skydive Dubai (Jay Price and Rashid Al Tayer) in third with 2.26,48.
“Yesterday after practice we worked hard with our staff to improve the boat. And today when I went for the first lap I could feel the boat was different, and to have won pole position is great,” said Fazza’s Al Zaffain after leaving the boat.
“The plan is to win the race, for sure. This race is different to last week – I can’t forget number 33 [Victory Team] and number 7 [Skydive Dubai] because they are very quick at the start so I have to make sure we do something special for our start,” he added.
Meanwhile, claiming the all-important fourth spot was the Italian team, Six, with Matteo Nicolini and Tomaso Polli just edging out the Qatar Team on their fifth lap in 2.29,73.
“We did our best time in the spray of boat number eight [Westerlund Racing], but it was our last chance to do it as in terms of fuel we had calculated the exact number of laps and we were done,” said Nicolini afterwards.
“If the start is like the Stresa start maybe to start in last position will be better,” he joked, referring to Fazza’s incredible start last weekend which saw them moving from bottom spot (after getting disqualified in Pole Position for an underweight boat) to second by the first turn. “But I hope fourth place will be an advantage for us.
“It’s 15 laps and we will push very hard from the beginning so if everything works well, I am confident we’ll be in a good position. The target is always the podium.
“It’s a new boat and a new partner and immediately we have become competitive. We need to still work on the boat to get it even more competitive. And the more we drive together, the better we will be. Tomaso [Polli] is very good and I think in the future we will be able to do great things together,” added Nicolini.
The European Grand Prix will kick off at 4.30pm (Italian time). Fans who cannot make it to Arona can follow all the action live via the link on the XCATracing.com home page.
