15 April 2016 – Another week, another win for the Victory Team. Arif Al Zaffain and Nadir bin Hendi continued their dominance of the 2016 UIM XCAT World Series with victory at the second round – the Dubai GP this afternoon.

While they didn’t head to the front from the start, an almost perfect long lap strategy saw the pair taking the lead in the ninth lap and eventually powering to a 17-second win over second-placed Abu Dhabi Team 5.

It had been Abu Dhabi 5’s Rashed Al Tayer and Faleh Al Mansoori who powered into the lead after a sensational start from the second gate.

But the duo just couldn’t build up enough of a lead to keep in front of the high-flying Victory Team who simply blew any opposition away.

The battle for third spot was eventually where all the action was with Swecat, Gold Coast Australia (Tom Barry-Cotter and Ross Willaton) and Dubai 33 (Salem Al Adidi and Eisa Al Ali) all battling it out for the final podium spot. But it was the Swedish Swecat team of Mikael Bengtsson and Erik Stark who finally took it with Dubai 33 struggling with their power steering for the final three laps and Gold Coast losing some power in one of their engines.

Speaking after the race, Victory Team’s manager Ragesh Elayadeth said: “It was exciting. We know our capacity, we know our capabilities so we kept racing and we planned a strategy – how to overtake them [Abu Dhabi Team 5]. We didn’t want to take a risk on the race course so we kept racing and we applied our long lap strategy and came out in front of them.

“You have to have a good driver, you have to have a good set-up and you have to have a good strategy also, so everything worked well and we knew we could overtake them somewhere in the middle of the race.”

Asked if the drivers had been at all nervous when they spent the first part of the race in second spot, Elayadeth added: “Arif and Nadir are the masters. There’s no other word to describe them. They know what to do. There were no nerves at all. They keep calm, they know when to go for the long laps and when to put pressure on.

“It’s because they are confident in themselves – they are the best drivers in the world at the moment. And they’re confident in their boat and in their team so they know they can be number one.”

Abu Dhabi Team 5’s Al Tayer was thrilled with their performance after the disappointment of not finishing last weekend’s race, but said a few errors had cost them.

“Our start was amazing – we gave everything and found ourselves in front,” he said. “It was on one of the long laps that we made a mistake though driving into the sun and had a big jump on one of the waves and lost a lot of speed there.”

As for Swecat, Bengtsson was particularly happy with claiming a podium spot for the second consecutive week.

“It was very exciting – when we had maybe five laps left we had the Dubai boat really close and we thought they had one long lap to go. But then when it was three, then two to go – we discovered they were on the same lap as us so it was a great fight until the end.

“This result is perfect for us. We didn’t think we’d be getting our second consecutive podium when we came here,” he added.

With the Dubai GP being moved a day earlier (after high winds and rough seas were forecast forSaturday), there is still more XCAT action to come this weekend.

The one-on-one, drag race-style Dubai Duty Free Speed Cat Run will be contested at 2.30pmtomorrow afternoon, bringing the curtain down on the Dubai GP.

After that, the action then moves to Lugano, Switzerland for the third round of the XCAT World Series from 4-5 June.

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