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Powerboat


Supplied picture
The new Dubai Victory Team boat, which will be launched at the Qatar Marine Festival Grand Prix in Doha on April 25.



Victory guns for title with Fazza 3
Staff Report
Published: April 21, 2009, 23:02


Dubai: The Dubai Victory Team will launch their 2009 Class 1 World Championship charge in Doha this week with an all-star pairing gunning for the title in a boat named in honour of Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai.

Current world champion Nader Bin Hendi will join forces again with 2007 world number one Arif Al Zafeen in the 1,800hp Fazza 3 - the first time a boat from the Victory stable has raced in the sport's premier competition without the team's name on the hull.

"Our participation in the 2009 World Championship is a result of the great support the team receives from our chairman Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and President of the Executive Council," said Victory Team Managing Director and former world champion Khalfan Harib.


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"While one of our two entries in the world championship will be called Victory 1 and will feature our traditional colours and name, the Fazza 3 boat is painted in a unique style and will carry 'Fazza 3' on both sides of the hull. The name is synonymous with Shaikh Hamdan and we are proud and honoured to be able to race under his name in 2009."

While the 2009 season - which gets under way with the Qatar Marine Festival Grand Prix in Doha on April 25 - will be the first outing for the Fazza team, the boat's crew is one of the best and most experienced in the world.

Bin Hendi stormed to his first Class 1 world crown just five months ago, while Al Zafeen lifted the same title a year earlier at the end of a remarkable rookie season.

Initially paired together for the 2008 campaign, Al Zafeen and Bin Hendi picked up maximum points in Doha last year before a racing injury forced Al Zafeen to sit out the remainder of the season.

Bin Hendi subsequently paired up with Mohammad Al Marri and the duo powered on to win the Victory Team's eighth Class 1 world crown in the boat now renamed Fazza 3.

While Al Zafeen and Bin Hendi will compete in Fazza 3, Victory 1 will see experienced throttleman and former world champion Jean Marc Sanchez join forces with rookie driver Mohammad Al Mehairi.

CLASS 1 SET FOR UNPREDICTABLE SEASON-OPENER IN QATAR
Monday, 20 April, DOHA (Qatar): Teams and competitors in the UIM-WPPA Class 1 World Powerboat Championship are poised to renew rivalries in the Qatar Marine Festival Grand Prix on Saturday, 25 April – the first race of the season and the eleventh race to be held in the Qatari Capital City of Doha in eight years.

Victory want a first Grand Slam, Qatar want a first World title and all their rivals want a piece of the action - Class 1 looks set for a captivating and possibly unpredictable season.

Ten boats will line up for the 21-lap, 96.45Nm Qatar Marine Festival Grand Prix; but with the introduction of new rules governing the use of electronics, limited propeller choice, new teams and a handful of untried driver-pairings, the outcome of the season-opener is hard to predict.

Dubai’s Victory Team, the defending World, Middle East and Edox Pole Position Champions, will start amongst the favourites for race honours and have rolled out three World Champions as they launch their bid to retain their crowns and hunt down a fourth win in Qatari waters as they aim for that elusive grand slam of all four titles in a season - only ever achieved by Spirit of Norway in 2003 - and described by Victory’s General Manager, Gianfranco Venturelli, as ‘mission impossible’. Defending Champion, Nadir Bin Hendi, is joined in last year’s winning boat - now named Fazza 3 - by the 2007 World and European Champion, Arif Al Zafeen, and will be looking to repeat their 2008 win in Doha, whilst his former partner, Jean-Marc Sanchez, is once again called on by the team’s hierarchy to draw on all his experience and steer another rookie - Mohammad Al Mehairi - through his first season, running in Victory 1.

The Qatar Team pose the greatest threat to Victory’s aspirations and Sheikh Hassan Bin Jabor Al-Thani is in absolutely no doubt that his team can win the World title and can kick-start their season-long campaign with a win on home waters. Sheikh Hassan, still looking for his first win in Doha, again lines up with former World Champion Steve Curtis - a five-times winner in Qatar - and will more than likely run the repaired and modified Qatar 96 with Skema V12s, whilst team-mates Matteo Nicolini and Abdullah Al-Sulaiti, who still hold the in-house bragging rights after taking the team’s only win in 2008 and fancy their chances of title glory this season, line up in the Sterling V8-powered Qatar 95, with Al-Sulaiti looking for his second win in front of a partisan crowd.

The bid to oust the sport’s two titans and upset the form book, is headed by the defending European Champion, Jorn Tandberg, who reforms his winning partnership with fellow Norwegian, Christian Zaborowski, running the Mercury-Class 1, V8-powered scarlet MTI, Welmax.

Maritimo Australia is the third team fielding a two-boat line-up and will be hoping to repeat the success that team owner, Bill Barry-Cotter and Peter McGrath enjoyed in Doha, when they took their maiden Class 1 win at the first Grand Prix held in Qatar in 2002. Twenty-one-year-old, Tom Barry-Cotter and Pal Virik Nilsen form the youngest partnership in Class 1, but can boast the most races and cockpit time together of any driver-throttleman combination in the Championship, and will run their new hull, Maritimo 11, with the straight-talking New Zealander, Peter McGrath, joined by Italian, Giorgio Manuzzi, in Maritimo 12, the boat the team debuted in Dubai last season - both outfits opting to run Maritimo Performance V8 power-plants.

Throughout the fleet, new driver-combinations dominate, adding to the unpredictability of the race outcome; throttleman, Giampaolo Montavoci and Francesco Pansini, back racing in Class 1 after a 13-year absence, team up for the first time in Foresti & Suardi- Roscioli Hotels.

Nicola Giorgi, who grabbed his first Class 1 podium in the penultimate race in Dubai last year, will be looking to build on that success and is joined in the Giorgi V12-powered Giorgioffshore by the team’s test-driver Riccardo Calugi, making his Class 1 debut, with the experienced Giovanni Carpitella partnering relative newcomer, Mohammed Abdelkader Ahmed, in Spirit of Spain in which Carpitella raced last year, taking an impressive fourth in the final race of the season.

The Qatar Marine Festival Grand Prix weekend kicks off with a two-hour official practice session on Thursday afternoon (23 April), followed by a second practice session on Friday morning ahead of the Edox Pole Position official qualifying session in the afternoon. A final practice session on Saturday morning precedes the 96.45Nm Qatar Marine Festival Grand Prix, run on the notoriously tricky Doha Bay circuit - which has seen some spectacular racing and incidents over the years - consisting of one 5.15Nm start lap, 18 race laps of 4.5Nm and two compulsory 5.15Nm long laps.

pics

the new paint job paid off in a victory for Fazza 3 in Qatar today....

That black boat has got to be a biotch to work on in that heat.

All the latest images including aerial shots are now online so check them out.

http://www.h2ofullthrottleforum.com/...?showtopic=245

hopefuly someone over at CBS sees this kinda of racing!!
10 50' cats ALL in the SAME CLASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dave ?????? What is that supposed to mean ????

If u are for our sport ,,u should be writing,," hopefully CBS will get us there " !!!!

And not a negative comment like this dump question !!

It's a novel idea, put on a good show with professional teams.

Sean,,,,why don't u buy us all supercats ???

Then we can all be pro's !

Oh,,by the way !! do u have a race boat ?