Outboard Racing

ABU DHABI – Tuesday, November 27, 2012 – For the first time in over a decade, four World Champions will be competing together at the 21^st Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi, the fifth and penultimate round of the UIM F1 World Championship Series taking place this Friday, the 30^th of November.

The last time four champions raced against each other in one Grand Prix dates back to 2000 in Abu Dhabi when Italian Guido Cappellini battled against American Scott Gillman, Fabrizio Bocca of Italy and Jonathan Jones from Wales.

Gillman, would go on to win the title that afternoon, while Jones would officially retire from racing at the end of the day after a long and brilliant career. Cappellini would reach the podium while fellow Italian Francesco Cantando won the 2000 event. The driver from Milan will also be taking part in this years Grand Prix looking for his third victory in Abu Dhabi.

This very talented line-up of drivers that will be competing this year in the Emirates starts with Scott Gillman who is returning for his first race since Kazan of 2011. This event will mark only his second in four seasons trading in his Team Manager hat this time around for a racing helmet for Team Abu Dhabi.

Meanwhile, last years runner-up in the Championship, Jay Price of the USA, is returning for the first time this season driving for the Skydive Dubai Team hoping to put a “monkey wrench” in the title hopes of 2011 teammate Carella when they both raced for the Qatar Team.

Finnish star Sami Selio of the Mad Croc Team is still in the hunt for a title. This despite him getting tangled up into a restart accident at the last Grand Prix in China and failing to earn needed world championship points. His 41 are 18 behind Carella with two races and 40 total points still up in the air to be won.

Carella, now has to focus on French driver Philippe Chiappe of the CTIC China Team. Chiappe’s 48 points puts him squarely in as a challenger for his first world title with two races to be run. The advantage for Alex is he knows how to capture a title while Philippe searches for his first career victory in his 80th start.

All in all, the 21^st running of the Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi being run on the new race circuit across from the dynamic backdrop of downtown along the corniche will be something special with the largest field of drivers of the year in the line-up with four drivers being ex-World Champions representing eight different years of excellence.

Official qualifying will take place this Thursday the 29^th at 15:00 local (11:00 GMT) and 06:00 EST on the East Coast of North America and the Grand Prix on Friday at 15:30 local time. Both can be followed live via the worldwide television feed by going to the series official website at www.f1h2o.com.

This is going to be a very interesting race..many new and old drivers in good race equipment.

This is going to be a very interesting race..many new and old drivers in good race equipment.

ABU DHABI – Friday, November 23, 2012 – Four-time World Champion and Hall-of-Fame member Scott Gillman is returning to the cockpit as the UIM F1 H2O World Championship for power boating heads for his home race course in Abu Dhabi next weekend at the 21^st Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

The Los Angeles, California driver will put his Team Manager hat aside and jump in the cockpit of a third Team Abu Dhabi boat. Despite the fact that the UIM rules state that only two of the three boats can technically score points, Scott looks at this opportunity as a good way to help inspire his duo of young drivers and his organization to win back the prestigious Team Points Championship that the club lost a year ago to the neighboring Qatar Team.

The team from Doha is led by current World Champion Alex Carella as the Italian leads the drivers table with 59 points, nine ahead of Team Abu Dhabi’s Ahmed Al Hameli who is sidelined for the remainder of the season fighting a tumor that was found late in the summer necessitating him to fly to the United States to get treated.

With Ahmed out of the line-up, teammate and veteran driver Thani Al Qamzi who sits fifth in the championship with 25 points, is searching for his first victory of the season. New teammate Majed Al Mansoori, who comes over from the Class-1 Offshore Series, will be racing in his second event of the season after finishing sixth for his first race in F1 in five years last month at the Grand Prix of China in Liuzhou.

For the veteran Gillman, the numbers don’t lie. He is the second winningest driver in UIM F1 H2O history with 23 victories in just 90 starts. He holds the all-time record of reaching the podium in 91% of the time in the races he has finished going 55 of 60 to the box.

The three-time North American champion won his first UIM F1 title his rookie season back in 1997 driving a three year old wooden Seebold built boat. He went on to win titles in 2000, 2002 and 2006 as well. He was leading the 2007 World Championship when he fell ill in Xian, China and dropped out of the tour for the remainder of the season.

Scott’s only appearance since Xian was last season when he replaced Al Hameli who was suspended by the UIM for a race, giving Gillman a chance to get his feet wet in the sport once again. He qualified eighth and went on to finish a fine fourth in Kazan, Russia with his first appearance in an F1 boat in four years time.

It will interesting how his race set-up will be and how he takes advantage of another opportunity in the sport that he seems he can’t get enough of.

You can follow Scott and the remaining members of the UIM F1 H2O World Championship tour by watching live from the series official website at www.f1h2o.com on both Thursday the 29^th for qualifying at 11:00 GMT and the Grand Prix on Friday the 30^th at 11:30 GMT from the official World Television feed at the fifth round of the championship at the 21^st Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi.