The Victory Team duo of Mansoor Al Mansoori and Alex Carella will be hoping to pick up vital points as they head into the Grand Prix of Portugal – the penultimate round on the 2018 UIM F2 World Championship on the Douro River in Ribadouro, Portugal, this weekend.

Both Victory Team drivers are yet to open their accounts following two races of the three held so far.

Starting as the lone driver at the season-opening Grand Prix of Lithuania in Kaunas, Al Mansoori was dogged by bad luck and went pointless again at the Grand Prix of Norway – the third round of the championship held in Tonsberg last month.

Victory Team put Carella in the second boat during the third round in Norway and this strategy nearly paid off as the Italian went on to win the Speed Run beating Ola Pettersson in the Match Racing final.

However, Carella could not sustain the momentum during the actual race the following day.

Al Mansoori said before the Victory Team left for Portugal on Wednesday night:

We have to be realistic about our chances after finishing with no points from both the races held so far.
Considering that we have totally new boats with everything else new, our strategy will be to focus on getting the set-up right so that we can start winning races in as short time as possible.

A former world champion in the F4 category, Al Mansoori is pleased to have a mentor like Carella:

It’s always going to be teamwork for us at Victory Team. Definitely, our ambition is we want to win every race that we enter, and that is a joint goal that both Alex and I have.
But somehow we have been struggling as we try and adjust to the new boats that have been made by us.

Being totally realistic would mean we use the 2018 season as a preparatory ground to get 2019 off to a flying start.
We will be stronger and better and the experience of this season will help us a long way in coming back to winning ways.