Emirati, Rashed Al Qemzi crowned his brilliant season in the 2019 UIM F2 World Championship this weekend with an emphatic home victory in the Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi.
The Team Abu Dhabi driver, already installed as F2 world champion for the second time in three years, led from start to finish to record his fourth Grand Prix triumph of the year with 4.63 seconds to spare from Portugal’s Duarte Benavente.
This success on home waters is the one that means most to Al Qemzi, particularly as he goes into the record books as the winner of the first ever UIM F2 race staged in the UAE capital.
The Emirati looked in complete control throughout, resisting Benavente’s challenge to pull away on the first lap, and refusing to be unsettled when the race was interrupted twice in quick succession following crashes by Sweden’s Johan Österberg and Dutchman Ferdinand Zandbergen.
Among those who almost blocked his path to victory was Germany’s Stefan Hagin, winner of this year’s Grand Prix of Norway.
It has been an outstanding season for Al Qemzi from his opening round victory in Lithuania in June. Other victories followed in Italy and Portugal to clinch the title with one round to spare, adding to the Nations Cup and F4-S world championships he secured before his first F2 triumph in 2017.
Al Qemzi has benefitted enormously from the vast experience and influence of ten-times former F1H2O champion Guido Cappellini, who has guided Team Abu Dhabi to nine world titles in five years.
To broaden Al Qemzi’s experience of different race conditions and pressure, the shrewd Cappellini included him in the team’s top four-man crew for this year’s World Endurance Championships, which they duly won in Poland in July.
Thomas Kurth, Secretary-General of the UIM, the international governing body of powerboating, also officially inaugurated the new Abu Dhabi Marine Academy during the post-event celebrations.
The academy has been set up by Abu Dhabi International Marine Sports Club to build on the outstanding powerboat racing success of Team Abu Dhabi who have won nine world titles since Guido Cappellini arrived as team manager in February, 2015.
Using a team of internationally and nationally qualified academy course instructors, it offers expert tuition in a range of water-based sports from swimming and fly board to waterski, aqua bike, and powerboat racing as well as rescue, recovery and safety.
Hermoine Macura-Noble
The first Australian English speaking News Anchor in the Middle East. She is also the Author of Faces of the Middle East and Founder of US-based 501c3 charity – The House of Rest which helps to ease the suffering of victims of war. For more from our Contributing Editor, you can follow her on Instagram, here.
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