UIM F1 World Championship- Qatar team signs on Andy Elliott

by Philippe Stiernon on 5 Mar 2010 British racer Andy Elliott will join Qatar’s former World Champion Jay Price in F1 Team Qatar’s line-up for the 2010 UIM F1 World Championship campaign, which starts in Portugal on May 8th-9th.

Khalid Bin Arhama Al-Kuwari, Head of Formula Racing at the Qatar Marine Sports Federation (QMSF), has confirmed that the British veteran will rejoin the Doha-based team after being forced out of last year’s championship following injuries sustained in a spectacular accident in Russia. The QMSF runs under the presidency of His Excellency Sheikh Hassan Bin Jabor Al-Thani.

Elliott, 54, is of the most experienced of all the F1 racers and represented the Qatar Team in Finland and Russia last season in his Dragon boat. The accident forced the Qatar Team to pass the second seat on to Australia’s Craig Bailey and then to British racer Malcolm Goodman when Bailey was also injured in a race in his native Australia.

Elliott began his racing career way back in 1969 with a 10hp Junior Mercury boat and was the T1 World Champion in 1981 and 1982. He went on to win the F3 World Championship in 1984, 1987 and 1989 and finished second overall in the UIM F1 World Championship behind the late John Hill in 1990.

The Briton was a regular member of the F1 racing fraternity throughout the 1990s and into the 21st century and is the most experienced of all the drivers in the provisional 2010 championship line-up. He has achieved two race wins, a second place and four third positions in his F1 racing career to date.

'It’s great news that Andy Elliott is fit again and will race with the Qatar Team in 2010,' enthused Al-Kuwari. 'With Andy rejoining Jay in the team, we have two racers with vast experience and I am sure that we will be pushing for the UIM F1 Teams’ Championship as well as the Drivers’ title. We chose Andy because he has over 40 years’ of racing experience around the world.

'Andy will continue to use his Dragon boat and Jay will start the season with his 2009 hull, which was so competitive over the last few rounds of the series last year. Jay will carry out a test session in Qatar later this month to shakedown the boat before we head off to Portugal in May.

'We know that we could easily have taken back-to-back world titles had Jay not had so many mid-season mechanical problems. But we hope that bad luck is behind us now and we can press on to winning back the world title.'

Price clinched the UIM F1 World Championship title for the QMSF in 2008 and was the fastest driver in last year’s 16-round championship, which began in Portugal and finished in Sharjah after additional rounds in Russia, Finland, China, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

Mechanical misfortunes cost the Qatar driver several crucial points finishes, but he did take outright race wins in Finland, Russia and the UAE and finished fourth overall in the UIM F1 Drivers’ Championship and a close second overall in the UIM Pole Position World Championship.

This year’s championship calendar is still provisional, although races in Portugal, Russia, China, Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah are already finalised and two extra dates at venues to be confirmed in July and August have also been added to the exciting calendar.

Al-Kuwari also confirmed that the QMSF will continue with its training and development programme of local drivers in Doha, with a bid to introducing Qatari racers to the UIM F1 World Championship in the near future.

www.f1h2o.com