Fazza in familiar first spot after claiming quickest qualifying time

24 January 2014, Dubai – The Victory Team outfit revelled in the home conditions to claim the top three starting spots for tomorrow’s first round of the 2014 UIM Skydive Dubai XCAT World Series. The Dubai-based team’s thee boats: Fazza, Skydive Dubai and Victory Team all looked slick out on the water at DIMC – Mina Seyahi as they battled it out in the fight for Emaar Pole Position. And it was 2013 Series champions Fazza (Arif Al Zaffain and Nadir Bin Hendi) who were the only boat out of the 15 teams to dip below two minutes 30 seconds, recording the fastest time of the morning of 2:28.39. Victory Team’s Salem Al Adidi and Taleb Al Sayed were second with 2:30.23 and Skydive Dubai third in 2:30.67. Meanwhile, finishing in fourth were the Italian pair of Alfredo Amato and Giovanni Carpitella in Videx. They made a few changes in the boat to ensure they were as quick as possible, eventually finishing with the fourth fastest time of the morning of 2:31.23. Carpitella started the day in the throttleman’s seat and Amato the driver’s, but after the first few laps in very flat conditions they swapped around and that seemed to make all the difference as it took several second off their time. Completing the top start gate for tomorrow’s race will be the Westerlund Racing team of Joakim Kumlin and Erik Stark who recorded a fastest time of 2:32.45 in their first lap of the morning for fifth spot. Victory Team Manager, Ragesh Elayadeth was thrilled with the morning’s proceedings. “I’m very happy like always with the pole position and one, two, three and looking forward to the race,” he said, adding that he was also excited by the Videx boat’s performance as the Victory Team maintains the boat. “So I’m sure our crews are doing a fantastic job for them also. They will be happy and same here – I’m happy for them too. Giovanni Carpitella is a very experienced pilot so they should bring some good results.” Talking about the race tomorrow, Elayadeth said despite Fazza starting in pole position (a spot they seldom relinquish), the result was far from a foregone conclusion. “If you look at the race course we have long laps so teams with good speed can overtake. It is possible. It’s all about strategy – it’s not like a normal race course. If you have good strategy and your boat has speed, it’s definitely possible.” Racing continues this afternoon with the head-to-head Dubai Duty Free Speed Cat Run while the main race will take place tomorrow at 3.30pm. Entrance for the general public is free and there are plenty of activities such as Skydive Dubai, Freestyle Jetski and Flyboard shows on offer to keep the whole family entertained.