Motivated by his second-place race finish in last month’s first round of this year’s series in Poland, the Emirati driver produced a stunning performance to win the final qualifying session which saw several drivers hampered by gusting winds.

My first ever pole position in F2 is really an amazing feeling now I can’t wait for tomorrow. I was surprised I could get such a clean lap in during the Q3 session. Up until then with twice the number of boats on the course it was really difficult. Now Guido has told me I must sit down and look at the telemetry and learn from today’s effort so I can improve.

After Al Mansoori took an early lead in the shoot-out, Seliö powered his way ahead, but the Emirati driver quickly responded to secure pole.

The Finn had set the benchmark for every session, on occasions leaving it to the very last second to secure the fastest time.

To be honest I was surprised that I made the fastest laps in the early qualifying especially as I didn’t cope with the right hander as good as I would have liked. You can never be happy with P2 but with the material we have we must be happy.

Giacomo Sacchi will be lining up alongside Seliö but was quick to admit that he had made the wrong choice with his propeller selection.

I wanted to try a long prop in the top six, but it proved to be too long. It’s only my second race in this new DAC and I’ve had zero seat time whilst we kept the boat in Vilnius before coming here. For sure I will have a lot more time in it before the next round in Portugal.

Another driver that we know will certainly be getting more time out testing before the next round in Baião will the Portuguese racer Duarte Benavente who qualified in fourth place.

Top six, happy with that as it’s really competitive out there. Struggled a little bit with a small steering issue but the team can fix that ready for the race tomorrow.

Another team set to be working late in the pits will by the RPM one. Their driver Stefan Hagin had destroyed his best racing engine during the mornings ‘Free Practice’ session and had spent a frantic few hours getting the German driver ready for qualifying.

The team did an amazing job to get me out there which I must thank them truly for. Everything was good until Q3 then one sensor for the oil pressure failed and the engine went in guardian mode, and I had no chance to set a good lap.

Rounding out the top six was the local hero Edgaras Riabko. Being stretched in all direction was perhaps not the ideal way to prepare for a round of the world championships. He had been unable to carry out any practice in the run up to the event due to an issue with his DAC steering. This was eventually fixed by the Team Abu Dhabi/DAC technicians using two power steering kits.

Fortunately for Riabko his steering was fine and once he had set up the balance of his boat, he felt positive about achieving a good result. That was the plan but unfortunately when the team came to Q3 they had underestimated the amount of fuel the Lithuanian driver needed. With it rapidly running out he was left with little option than just posting a few lap times, but nothing anywhere near competitive enough to see him move up the grid.

I asked the team to speak to the UIM Race Officials about how much fuel we needed in the tank for post qualifying scrutineering. We never got an answer and then we checked and saw that if we didn’t have enough, I would get disqualified not just from Q3 but from the whole qualifying session, so not worth risking it.

The F2 action gets under way with ‘Warm Up’ at 12:10 local Lithuanian time followed at 17:00 with the start of the Grand Prix of Lithuania.

Final qualifying position for Grand Prix of Lithuania

Their helmets were originally popularised by F1 legend Michael Schumacher, who used the company’s products as world champion in the early 2000s. Schuberth helmets are currently being used by Max Verstappen, Carlos Sainz, and Sergio Perez.

The switch to Schuberth was introduced by Guido Cappellini who in his racing career used helmets made by Bell or Arai.  The SP1 Carbon is an exclusive, autoclave cured, carbon fibre shell masterfully handcrafted to provide a unique helmet combining light weight, solid construction, and superior safety, in their iconic design.

Now for me the best is Schuberth. Although it’s incredibly strong it’s also much lighter, which means it will help Al Qemzi with the high G-Force in the turns. Less stress on the driver in the race is a huge advantage. Every SP1 helmet is produced in their own factory in Italy, by the same hands that produce the masterpiece helmets used by several F1 motor racing drivers.

Al Qemzi was full of praise for his new helmet.

It’s perfect, way much better than the last one. At first it took a little time to get used to it but I can move my head around so much easier so I can get better visibility without getting a sore neck.

The three-times UIM F2 World Champion will start the Lithuanian Grand Prix from seventh spot after narrowly missing a place in the shoot-out on the demanding Kupiškis circuit.

The course was too crowded, and it was exceedingly difficult to set a good time, but I’ll push hard in the race, and everything is possible.

Photos supplied by Chris Davies/PRW

This will be the eighth year of AquaX racing at this mecca for motorsport and Hard Rock will again be the host hotel. It will be a make-or-break event for some riders and race teams as not only is the national title at stake but also qualifying places for the P1 AquaX Bahamas World Championship later this year.

The Grand Prix is the fourth round in the 2022 race series that comprises a total of five venues in Florida and Indiana over five months, together with the return on the World Championship at Atlantis Paradise Island in Nassau in early November. The national championship features Pro and Am Enduro racing with the addition of a Jr Enduro class this season for the first time. Short Block Technologies (SBT), the largest pwc aftermarket parts company in the world, is the title sponsor of the series, which receives national television coverage on Bally Sports Regional Networks.

In the Pro Enduro class, only twelve points separate the leader James Wilson from Tory Snyder, with reigning champion Erminio Iantosca just one point behind in third place. The father and son duo of Dustin and Deven Farthing are still very much in the mix.

The amateur Enduro 300 class is also extremely competitive with Matthew Smith and Joe Johnson on the same number of points in second place as they chase the leader, Enrique Chia.

Sam Nehme is dominating the 200 Enduro class, with Kevin Sullivan a distant second. Nehme simply needs to maintain his form and avoid mechanical issues in Daytona Beach to book his trip to The Bahamas with a wild card opportunity to move up to the 300 Amateur class.

Speaking from the AquaX race headquarters in Orlando, P1 USA Championship Manager Michelle Petro said

Outstanding locations and host venues contribute enormously to our event offering, and Daytona Beach often lives up to its reputation for serving up challenging conditions with the Atlantic surf sorting out the men from the boys. My thanks go to the Daytona Beach Area Convention and Visitors Bureau for their continued support.

The final round of the Aquax National Championship will take the riders to St. Petersburg on Florida’s Gulf Coast on the weekend of September 3-4.

The City of Rouen has just hammered the final nail in the coffin of the race, by announcing today that it would no longer authorise the event.

Against a backdrop of Covid and then financial difficulties, the event has been under fire for a few years now and with the arrival at the head of the town hall of a coalition formed between the PS and Ecology parties did not bode well for the future of the sporting event.

The decision was announced in a press release to no longer issue the authorisation to the Rouen Yacht Club to organise the event.

For more than six months now, we have been going through a serious energy crisis. The purchasing power of our fellow citizens is very strongly impacted, as are the budgets of municipalities. Significant efforts are required of everyone, households, communities, companies, especially in terms of energy sobriety. We must be exemplary. Global warming, so tragically visible this summer through major and recurrent episodes of heat waves, also has consequences and pushes us to act.

This difficult context, in which we find ourselves today, will unfortunately last. It requires making choices. This is the reason the City of Rouen has decided to no longer issue the authorisation to the Rouen Yacht Club to organize the 24h motorboat.

After the announcement, the Rouen Yacht Club reacted by saying

The organisers of the 24 Heures Motonautiques de Rouen are stunned by the announcement of the City of Rouen of its intention to no longer authorise the sporting event in the name of the climate and energy crisis.

Jérémy Brisset, Vice-President of the Rouen Yacht Club seen here celebrating their team’s recent victory at the 2022 Orlen Necko UIM World Circuit Endurance Championships in Augustów, Poland said

We’re a bit on our ass at the moment as we have just heard the news. The incomprehension is all the greater because we had a meeting a month ago with the town hall. We asked them if we could communicate about the 2023 event and Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol said ‘yes.’  At that meeting, the municipality asked the club to prepare a plan for September. We thought it was shaping up well. Since the Greens are there, we know that it would be complicated but it looks like these past months we have been working for nothing.

PRW understands that a meeting of the Rouen Yacht Club board of Directors is scheduled to take place next week. The future of endurance racing will for sure be at the heart of the discussions.