TEAMS SCRAMBLE TO GET READY FOR GP OF QATAR!
BRIGADA JOINS CAPPELLINI ON TAMOIL TEAM!
DOHA, Qatar – 13rd of April, 2006 – The
anticipation of the start of the 23rd season of the U.I.M. F1 World
Championship has come to the lovely seaside setting of the inner
harbour of the capital city of Doha, Qatar, and as many teams are
focusing on the Friday morning first practice session, others are
scrambling to just get their boats in the paddock and out of their
containers.
The XPV Racing Team of David and Bob Trask had been waiting patiently
for their two boats to arrive via container ship from Australia,
however paper work confusion forced a two day delay in not only finding
the container with the two race boats on board, but as bad luck would
have it, the container was on the bottom of the ship forcing a scramble
to get the boats unloaded and through customs before the 8 pm Thursday
night deadline.
“We were in a panic, we looked for our shipment for two days
before we found the right ship it was on,” stated Bob Trask
leader of the XPV Racing effort. “We got everything taken care
of courtesy of our local promoter Mr. Mohammed Al Jaidah and logistics
director Ms. Lavinia Cavallero of Idea Marketing and we made it by
an eyelash.”
As the drama of this event was being taken care of at one end of
the paddock, further down pit row, Portuguese pilot Duarte Benavente
was rigging his brand new Dragon design F1 hull out of the workshops
of ex-World Champion Jonathan Jones from Wales in a great hurry while
knowing he will be on a giant learning curve with the new design
in his first practice session. His teammate Andy Elliott of Great
Britain will also have a Dragon design on hand and should be a giant
help to him in preparing for the circuit.
Other surprising news came from the World Championship camp of the
Tamoil Team as expected number two driver Fabian Kalsow of Germany
didn’t make the trip to Doha after breaking his foot. He is
now being replaced by test driver Ivan Brigada of Italy who will
be making his 4th career start after having another busy season in
the winter months running F2 Presidents Cup in the Middle East.
Today’s schedule will highlight one practice session followed
by two timed sessions and a top-6 shootout to determine tomorrows line-up
for the 2nd Annual Grand Prix of Qatar expected to begin at 15:00 local,
13:00 GMT.
For additional information, interviews or video footage please contact:
Philippe Stiernon
Press Officer
Philippe@f1boat.com
Photo: http://www.f1boatphotos.com |