|
Athens, Greece: Dubai's Victory Team made a dream start to the season taking the first two positions at the Greek Grand Prix - the opening round of the 2007 WPPA Class One World Powerboat Championship yesterday.
Victory 77, driven by debutant Aref Al Zafein and French throttleman Jean Marc Sanchez, clinched victory with a time of 54:19.96, while early leaders and Victory teammates Nader Bin Hindi and Ahmad Al Suwaidi finished second in Victory 7, half a minute away.
Al Zafein made history when he became the first Victory Team driver to win a race on his debut.
However, the Dubai boats needed to survive a protest before securing victory.
Saeed Hareb, President of the World Professional Powerboat Association, said that the two Victory Team boats had threatened the safety of the race at the start.
After a meeting with the race jury, Victory 7 was given a yellow card, while Victory 77 was let off with a warning. Three yellow cards mean an automatic suspension for one race during the calendar year.
Defending world champions Spirit of Norway had to withdraw following problems with their engines to leave Qatar 96 in third place on the podium.
"This is a dream start for the team and I hope we can carry forward this momentum as the season goes on," Victory Team General Manager Gianfranco Venturelli told Gulf News.
"It has been a long time since we have taken the first two spots. We deserve these places as it points towards all the hard work we have put in during the winter," the Italian added.
"We believed in ourselves and went about doing our work quietly and this paid dividends," stated Victory 77 Crew Chief Marco Bonhomo.
"Now that we know we are on the right track we need to ensure we do the right things as the season progresses," he added.
The start of the race was fierce with Victory 7 going clear and Jotun and Spirit of Norway close on their heels even as Qatar 96 and Victory 77 tried to cut down on the leaders.
This remained unchanged till the third lap when Spirit of Norway slipped into second and Victory 77 pushed Jotun into fourth place.
From then on it turned out to be a close tussle between the two Victory boats and Spirit of Norway sandwiched in between.
By the fourth lap, Victory 77 had overtaken Spirit of Norway – already struggling with their engines - and commenced challenging the leader Victory 7.
By the eighth lap, Victory 77 was powering away from their teammates and there was no worthy challenger as the two blue boats broke away from the rest.
Results
(Provisional) 1. Victory 77 (Aref Al Zafein/ Jean Marc Sanchez/ 54:19.96); 2. Victory 7 (Ahmad Al Suwaidi/ Nader Bin Hindi/54:49.36); 3. Qatar 96 (Shaikh Hassan Bin Jaber Al Thani/ Matteo Nicolini/ 55:49.09); 4. Qatar 95 (Abdullah Al Sulaiti/ Luca Nicolini/ 55:52.92); 5. Spirit of Norway (Bjorn Gjelsten/ Steve Curtis/ 55:31.51); 6. SeveneleveN (Nicola Giorgi/Tomaso Polli/58:02.70); 7. Foresti & Suardi (Giampaolo Montavoci/Domenico Cirilli); 8. Spirit of Norway 20 (Tom Barry-Cotter/Pal Virik Nilsen); 9. Jotun (Jorn Tandberg/Christian Zaborowski); 10. Negotiator (Chris Parsonage/Bard Eker); 11. Overwave (Maurizio Ceschin/Enrico Ceriali).
|
