The Qatar F1 Team took excellent third and eighth positions in yesterday’s Portugal Grand Prix, round one of the 2007 UIM F1 World Championship. Team-mates Jay Price and Leo Bonelli filled those respective positions after an action-packed and incident-filled race, which was won by Scott Gillman of the Emirates Team.
Gillman enjoyed a race-long tussle with the Italian Guido Cappellini, Price, Finland’s Sami Selio and Emirates team-mate Thani Al Qamzi over the early laps.
Price and Bonelli began the race in sixth and 12th places on the grid after Saturday’s time trials in Portimao.
Defending World Champion Gillman started the opening round of the UIM F1 World Championship in Pole Position in his Emirates Team boat, followed by Thani Al Qamzi, Selio and Sweden’s Jonas Andersson.
Yellow flag incidents, traffic and close racing were a feature of the afternoon’s race, but the Qatar Team were delighted with the result after a series of minor set-backs during race weekend.
Price had been unable to take part in Saturday’s six-boat Shoot-Out competition, because of a gear casing problem and the loss of an engine part, but he was confident that he could make an impression from sixth place out of the 23 boats that started yesterday’s race.
Neither Price nor Cappellini therefore scored Pole Position Championship points.
Last year’s world title contenders were the men to beat on this opening European race, with California’s Gillman and Cappellini taking the initiative, although Thani Al Qamzi, Price, Selio and Frenchman Phillipe Dessertenne were well-placed.
The Grand Prix developed into a frantic tussle between the leading quartet, once Al Qamzi had been forced out of the hunt with mechanical problems.
Gillman, the defending World Champion, edged into a slender lead with a mere 12 laps remaining.
Cappellini managed to hold off the advances of Price in the Qatar Team BaBa, although one mistake by the American would have seen him fall into the clutches of the hard-challenging Selio. Bonelli was enjoying a spirited first GP with the Qatar Team in the lower reaches of the top 10.
Over the closing laps the leading quartet suffered anxious moments lapping slower boats, but Gillman held on to take maximum points from Capellini and Price sealed the Qatar Team’s first podium of the season. Bonelli was delighted with eighth place.
“It was one hell of a race and a great start to the new season, not just for the Qatar Team but for the entire championship,” said Sweden’s Pelle Larsson, the Qatar F1 Team Manager at the Qatar Marine Sports Federation, which is run under the presidency of Sheikh Hassan bin Jabor A l Thani in Doha.
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