7 April, 2016 – Rashed Al Tayer and Faleh Al Mansoori mastered the new Emaar Pole Position format to ensure Abu Dhabi Team 5 will start Friday’s Fujairah GP – the opening round of the 2016 UIM XCAT World Series – in top spot.

The duo left it to their last lap in the first qualifying session to avoid finishing as one of the bottom five teams, who were knocked out of contention, with the top nine progressing to session two.

They also just made it through the 10-minute second session of qualifying with the fourth fastest time – and only four boats progressing to the final round.

But a penalty imposed on the quickest two boats for jumping the green flag in the final session (which consisted of just one timed lap) worked in the Abu Dhabi Team’s favour.

The defending Fujairah GP champions will start in first with the Team Australia boat of Brett Luhrmann and Pal Virik Nilsen (who were quickest in both first and second sessions) starting in second spot with Victory Team (Arif Al Zaffain and Nadir bin Hendi) third and T-Bone Station (Giovanni Carpitella and Marco Pennesi) in fourth.

“We had good conditions for the race today,” said Al Tayer afterwards. “We started with good speed and we pushed hard. Our strategy was to keep the surprise for the last lap in the first session because good players don’t show all their cards from the start.

Al Mansoori added: “It was a very successful strategy. Now we are on the top and what is better than that?”

Speaking about the new Emaar Pole Position format, Al Mansoori added: “The new format is very good because it moves away the weak teams from the start and keeps the field open only for the strongest and best.

As for tomorrow’s GP, Al Tayer reckoned: “Fujairah always has different conditions and usually the afternoon has rough water so we must expect anything but our plan is always to drive fast and furious.”

Later in the day, Arif Al Zaffain and Nadir bin Hendi made a return to the top of the podium with victory in the Dubai Duty Free Speed Cat Run at the opening round of the 2016 UIM XCAT World Series in Fujairah on Thursday.

The Victory Team duo cruised through round one, beating Swecat (Mikael Bengtsson and Erik Stark) before getting the better of Abu Dhabi Team 4 (Majed Al Mansoori and Rashed Al Qamzi) in round two.

Then came a showdown with the high-flying T-Bone Station team (Giovanni Carpitella and Marco Pennesi) which they edged before coming up against Six (Matteo Nicolini and Tomaso Polli) in the final.

Six, who looked far better than they have all week, had reached the final after victories over the super-speedy Team Australia (Brett Luhrmann and Pal Virik Nilsen) and Emaar Pole Position winners Abu Dhabi Team 5 (Rashed Al Tayer and Faleh Al Mansoori, who had reached an incredible 180km/hr) in the first and second rounds.

They then out-paced Lady Spain (Jay Price and Sean Torrente) in the penultimate round to set up the final with Victory Team.

T-Bone Station completed the podium with a third-place race-off win over Lady Spain. Looking at the podium it was interesting to note that two of the three places were occupied by boats with two-stroke engines.

Attention now turns to the main race of the weekend – the Fujairah GP which gets underway at 4pmtomorrow with Team Abu Dhabi 5 in first spot, Team Australia in second, Victory Team third and T-Bone Station fourth.

For more information on the UIM XCAT World Series, log on to www.xcatracing.com