The fifth round of the UIM XCAT Powerboat World Series was packed with two Italian teams on the podium.
Formed in 2008, WPPA are the exclusive promoters of the XCAT (Extreme Catamaran) World Series.
There was quite a familiar look to the start of Saturday’s Dubai GP with the overall UIM XCAT World Powerboating Series leaders, XDubai, back in top spot. The boat driven by Arif Al Zaffain and Nadir bin Hendi got the fastest time in the race for pole position on Friday at 2:33.93.
Their teammates, Dubai, were second quickest, over two seconds back, with Salem Al Adidi and Eisa Al Ali securing a time of 2:36.34.
More glory for the XDubai team on Friday afternoon by winning the Dubai Duty Free Speed Cat Run, after defeating T-Bone Station (Giovanni Carpitella and Luca Fendi) in the final head-to-head showdown of the day.
At every round, beside the main race, there is a special competition named Speed Cat Run; a drag racing event where all the teams clash in a series of knockout competitions.
But conditions during the Saturday race changed and Italian teams defeated the local boats. Overall series leaders and defending champions XDubai, who started the race in pole position, succumbed to a gear casing fault in the sixth lap of the race. Joakim Kumlin and Alfredo Amato outlasted a field that diminished at a rapid rate as half of the 14 teams didn’t make it to the finish line thanks to the massive waves and rough conditions. Massive jobs also for the rescue teams involved, but luckily no accidents happened.
Fellow Italian team T-Bone Station finished second with Team Abu Dhabi (Rashed Al Tayer and Faleh Al Mansoori) overcoming initial problems and overtaking for third place a heartbroken Swecat team (Erik Stark and Mikael Bengtsson), who broke down on the final lap.
Saturday’s drama also saw the other Italian team Six (Matteo Nicolini and Tomaso Polli) taking an underwater dive while leading the race on lap nine but still managing to keep the engines running and making it to the penultimate lap.
But the day belonged to Videx in the end and Kumlin was thrilled with the victory.
“It was a really tough race. We started very well from the beginning and then Fazza had a problem, Abu Dhabi had a problem and we just kept on going,” explained Kumlin.
“After they dived we had a chance to take boat Six and we were leading the race right after that.”
“We felt it on the last lap so I was really very stressed about it because I felt the boat was going really slowly and really badly,” explained Kumlin. “I was just holding thumbs that it was going to be ok.”
“I don’t know what to say. I’m so, so happy about it. Dubai is a really good place to win.”
T-Bone Station’s Fendi was equally thrilled with second spot after a hair-raising start to the race.
“It was more than exciting. I was a little bit scared too,” he admitted. “I have to say, it was really rough and our boat is the shortest so we were sometimes going inside the waves.
“I said ‘I don’t know if we can finish’ so we slowed down a bit to save the boat because it was really rough. I don’t think we would have made it if we had pushed to the limit for 16 laps. And that tactic paid off because those that were really pushing broke the engines or the boat or something. It was our decision to slow down.
“These were the worst possible conditions for our boat but Giovanni is so good at managing this.
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Words by: Nico de Corato
Photos by: Getty Images
