(MENAFN- Qatar News Agency) The Qatar Team's Alex Carella and Shaun Torrente produced a pair of top class performances to crush the opposition in Saturday's Grand Prix of Qatar, round one of the 2014 UIM F1 H20 World Championship, on Doha Bay.
But Torrente's run of cruel luck continued when he was forced to remove his DAC's canopy within sight of the finish after a wire to the power steering caught fir
His abrupt demise handed the race win to his team-mat
Torrente, a winner of his first ever F1 H20 Grand Prix in Qatar last November, hit the front on the opening lap and managed to fend off Carella, the eventual winning three-time World Champion, for 31 lap
Frenchman Phillipe Chiappe finished second in his CTIC China Team Moore, Portugal's Duarte Benavente was third, Italian veteran Francesco Cantando took fourth and Finland's Filip Roms completed the top fiv
There was a high rate of attrition in the difficult racing condition
Pole sitter Sami Selio was sidelined on lap two, pole winner Jonas Andersson joined him a lap later with engine issues and Yousef Al-Rubayan and Erik Stark also retired early o
"Obviously it would have been fantastic to get the one-two here and we showed that this could so easily have happened," said Khalid bin Arhama Al-Kuwari, head of formula racing at the Qatar Marine Sports Federation (QMSF
"I feel for Shaun. His luck must change soon. We wanted to get maximum points with both drivers. But it was not to be. "We had to be careful all weekend and not take any risks because we did not have a spare boat available. The third boat has been shipped to the US for testing purposes." "It was not so easy to catch Shaun at all," said a triumphant Carell
"He had a very good pace. I did not know that I was ahead until the next lap because we were both in traffic passing other boat
This is a great result for me. A perfect way to start the year with a win in Qatar." Torrente was obviously disappointed: "We put a ridiculously amount of effort into this weekend and then we had a fire from the power steering wiring, there was smoke and I had to take the canopy off." Khalid Abdullah Al-Kuwari and Mohammed Al-Obaidly were scheduled to start the second of the UIM F-4S races from fourth and sixth places, but race officials deemed that gusting westerly and north-westerly winds blowing across Doha Bay were too dangerous and the race for the rookies was cancelled after the drivers had waiting at the start pontoon for 15 minutes while the unfortunate decision was mad
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