Italian XCAT duo’s season hopes boosted by speedy practice time

23 January 2014, Dubai - Tomaso Polli and Matteo Nicolini were well-pleased with their first outing of the season, ahead of the first UIM Skydive Dubai XCAT World Series race of the year this weekend.

But they believe there’s still more to come for their team as they look to build on the successes of 2013. Taking to the water at DIMC – Mina Seyahi for the first official practice of the season this afternoon, the duo in their boat, Six, managed the second fastest time of the afternoon, recording a fastest lap time of 2:38.00.

Skydive Dubai (Sultan Al Dhaheri and Jay Price) were quickest in 2:37.81 and Fazza (Arif Al Zaffain and Nadir bin Hendi) third in 2:38.79.

“The time shows that we are strong but I’m not totally happy. My plan was to be at least two seconds quicker than the second boat,” explained Nicolini. “Now we are in second so we need to work to get the initial target.

“But we are happy in general that we can be very competitive this year for sure. During the short winter between races, we made a few changes to the boat, but we can still do much more to be the enemy of Arif,” he added with a smile, referring to Al Zaffain, who took the overall Series title with Nadir bin Hendi in Fazza last year.

“Our time this afternoon puts us between the two strongest teams of last year though so we are happy with that. It’s positive and the direction we are going in is good.”

The race for EMAAR pole position will take place at 9.45am tomorrow (Friday), January 24 while the head-to-head Dubai Duty Free Speed Cat Run will be contested at 3pm that same day. The main race, the Dubai Grand Prix, will take place at 3.30pm on Saturday, 24 January. Entrance is free to the general public.

Once again there will be plenty of activities on offer for the whole family, with a dedicated kids zone, food and beverage on sale and breathtaking Flyboard, Skydive Dubai and Freestyle Jet Ski shows on offer in between the racing.