Team Abu Dhabi confirm Torrente, Rashed will line up with Thani at Sharjah GP

Abu Dhabi has confirmed that both Shaun Torrente and Rashed Al Qemzi will race alongside Thani Al Qamzi in a three-boat team at the Grand Prix of Sharjah on Dec.8-10.

Torrente is the defending UIM F1H2O World Champion and missed the last round in Sardinia because of a yellow card one-race suspension. But the Florida driver heads back to Khalid Lagoon just under 12 months after wrapping up a third world title in dramatic fashion, having retired from the race and discovered he’d won from the pits when Team Sweden’s Jonas Andersson ground to a halt within sight of the chequered flag.

Qemzi will be competing in his third F1H2O race of the season. He replaced Thani Al Qamzi to finish seventh at the Grand Prix of China in Zhengzhou and was classified 10th in Sardinia. This year he has already claimed a fourth UIM F2 World Championship title with victories in Klaipeda and San Nazarro and a second place in Peso da Regua. He rounded off his F2 season with a win in Vila Velha de Rodao in Portugal in late September.

Torrente has suffered his fair share of bad luck this season and holds seventh in the Drivers’ Championship, following ninth place in Indonesia, second in China and his disqualification in France. After taking a clean sweep of all four trophies in 2022, Team Abu Dhabi is struggling to add any silverware to the cabinet this year. Torrente still has an outside chance of winning the Pole Position Trophy but the team operating out of the Abu Dhabi Marine Sports Club (ADMSC) will need sensational driver performances and results to go their way if they are going to retain the Teams’ Championship.

Qamzi will make his 151st career F1H2O race start in Sharjah and will be hoping to secure a 45th career podium. His last victory came in Olbia last season and the Emirati veteran is overdue a race win. He currently holds fifth in the Drivers’ Championship, following a similar finish on Lake Toba, third in France and eighth in Sardinia recently.

Meanwhile, as the dust settles on Regione Sardegna Grand Prix of Italy and Team Sweden’s Andersson celebrates a second UIM F1H2O World Drivers’ Championship title with one round to spare, H2O Racing has assessed the new race format that was used in Olbia and has been delighted by the initial feedback to the new qualifying, sprint and repechage format.

The new concept went down a treat with spectators, media and the global television audience and enabled teams and sponsors to have more time on the water in a racing environment.

The opening extra free practice was split into two groups for odd and even-numbered boats, with one representative of each of the 10 teams in one of the heats in Olbia for safety reasons. Ideal weather conditions dictated that this session in Sardinia passed without a hitch and delivered some thrilling on-water action.

BRM qualifying for the sprint races delivered a pulsating duel for supremacy in heat one and sorted out the order for the afternoon’s two sprint races for the two groups, the result of which would determine the starting order for the fastest 14 boats, with the remaining six having the opportunity to race for two extra places in the Grand Prix in a repechage.

Seven boats from each group automatically qualified for the Grand Prix. UIM officials and H2O Racing opted to use individual fastest laps from qualifying to split the group winners, runners-up and so on from each sprint race and the line-up for the 14 places was finalised on a fair and equal basis.

Two qualifying sessions and the pair of sprint races also doubled the amount of time that racers were on the water to the benefit of both spectators and the television audience and gave teams the chance to try out new race strategies for the weekend.

A line-up of 16 boats for the main race and a staggered start with two groups of eight worked well and enabled race officials to best utilise the narrower race course in Sardinia. From the start onwards, the race format was the same as before, but came at the culmination of more hours of racing for the watching public and there-times as much live television footage over the course.