The
fight for the 2008 WPPA Class 1 World Powerboat Championship looks set
to be the most fiercely and openly contested for almost a decade. Of the
ten boats that will challenge for the title this season, nine will
field new driver pairings, with two new teams and three new drivers set
to make their Class 1 debuts. Victory will line up for the season
opener, the Qatar Grand Prix, in Doha coming Saturday, 1st March to
start the defence of their World title with Arif Saif Al Zafeen and
Jean-Marc Sanchez, the 2007 World and European Champions facing each
other as team-rivals. Al Zafeen will run with the prestigious number one
plate in Victory 1 and partnered by Nadir Bin Hendi, whilst throttle
man Sanchez, who for the second year in a row is tasked with guiding and
developing the talents of the latest recruit to the Victory camp, Class
1 rookie, Abdullah Al Mehairbi, in Victory 7. If there is pressure on
Victory to successfully defend their titles this season – there is
possibly greater pressure on Sheikh Hassan to try and deliver Qatar’s
first world crown, and who will come under intense scrutiny to see how
he performs in Qatar 96, the ex Spirit of Norway 10 alongside the teams
‘new boy’ Steve Curtis and in the boat that he won four of his eight
world titles. Sheikh Hassan’s former throttleman Matteo Nicolini takes
over the sticks in Qatar 95 alongside Abdullah Al-Sulaiti to rekindle a
tried and tested partnership that knows each other well having raced
together winning the Class 3, 6 litre World and GCC Championships and
who will be formidable adversaries, especially with both Qatar outfits
running the Skema, V12 power-plants. Europe’s challenge to the might of
the Middle East, as well as the challenge to try to break the dominance
of the V12 engines, will be headed by Negotiator, the only outfit in
2008 to field an unchanged line-up, with Chris Parsonage and Bard Eker
looking to build on their strong second half season-showing in 2007, and
hoping to reap the rewards of a full season behind them developing the
Sterling Supercharged V8s. A new-look for Jotun sees Bjorge Jacobsen
taking the wheel in Doha, a role he will share with Class 1 newcomer
Inge Brigt Aarbakke over the course of the season to partner Jorn
Tandberg, with the team running an improved Mercury-Class 1, V8 engine
set-up and bringing in American Jon Maas as Crew Chief in an effort to
cure the reliability issues that thwarted Jotun’s 2007 campaign.
Giorgioffshore will start 2008 with renewed optimism and fully confident
that they will deliver a new level of performance, replacing their
Cougar and running a Michael Peters-designed, Victory hull powered by
Giorgioffshore V12s, with Giorgio Manuzzi, who made his Class 1 debut at
the Egyptian Grand Prix last year, taking the wheel to partner Nicola
Giorgi in SeveneleveN. Giampaolo Montavoci also starts 2008 with a new
wheel-man, Norwegian, Kolbjorn Selmer, who also made his Class 1 debut
last year, joining him in Foresti & Suardi. But it is likely that
the pair, who have raced together twice before will kick-off their
season in the number two boat, the favoured boat currently undergoing
modifications in Italy. New outfit Team One is expected to make its
first appearance in the Championship in Doha, with Italian Lino di Biase
being touted as the likely throttleman and Frenchman, Jerome Brarda in
the frame to take the drivers seat, but the new all-Spanish team being
brought together by Domenico Cirilli are likely to start their season at
the second race of the year, the Montenegrin Grand Prix in Budva.
2008 Teams & Boats
VICTORY TEAM (Dubai, United Arab Emirates)
1 Victory - Arif Saif Al Zafeen (D) UAE / Nadir Bin Hendi (T) UAE
7 Victory - Abdullah Al Mehairbi (D) UAE / Jean-Marc Sanchez (T) France
VENETA MARINA (Italy)
8 Foresti & Suardi - Kolbjorn Selmer (D) Norway / Giampaolo Montavoci (T) Italy
TEAM ONE (France)
20 - Jerome Brarda (D) France / Lino di Biase (T) Italy
GIORGIOFFSHORE (Italy)
18 SeveneleveN - Giorgio Manuzzi (D) Italy / Nicola Giorgi (T) Italy
CHRIS PARSONAGE RACING (England)
50 Negotiator - Bard Eker (D) Norway / Chris Parsonage (T) England
DUEMME BROKER (Spain)
88 - Sergio Mora Carrasco (D) Spain / Domenico Cirilli (T) Spain
UGLAND OFFSHORE RACING (Norway)
90 Jotun - Bjorge Jacobsen (D) Norway / Jorn Tandberg (T) Norway
QATAR TEAM (Qatar)
95 Qatar - Abdullah Al-Sulaiti (D) Qatar / Matteo Nicolini (T) Italy
96 Qatar - HE Sheikh Hassan bin Jabor Al-Thani (D) Qatar / Steve Curtis (T) England
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