Class 1 - 2008 Season Preview

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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