Victory 1 loses Podium place in Class 1
'Victory 1 - BMW Norwegian Grand Prix'
Class-1 World Powerboat Championship ©
Championship leaders, Mohammed Al Marri and Nadir Bin Hendi, have lost their third place in last weekend's BMW Norwegian Grand Prix after being given a time adjustment of one penalty long-lap for hitting and destroying a turn buoy during the race.
The penalty was imposed by WPPA race officials after reviewing television footage. 'It was apparent that one of the mark buoys was destroyed, but it was not possible to provide conclusive evidence with regard to which boat had hit or destroyed the buoy,' said WPPA race director, Rory Power. 'WPPA rules provide that television or video evidence may be used for either the correction of a race decision, or implementing a change to provisional results up to five days after the posting of results. Subsequent evaluation of video footage confirmed Victory 1 as the boat that destroyed the race mark.'
The time adjustment of 12.94s - the difference between Victory 1's slowest long-lap time (3m 39.69s) against the time of their lap prior to the lap in which they took out the buoy (3m 26.75s) - hands third place in the BMW Norwegian Grand Prix to Sheikh Hassan bin Jabor Al-Thani and Steve Curtis in Qatar 96, giving them third place outright in the Championship standings - now 26 points adrift of Victory 1.
And whilst Al Marri and Bin Hendi still have a comfortable lead in the overall Championship standings of 18 points over team-mates, Abdullah Al Mehairbi and Jean-Marc Sanchez in Victory 7, their lead in the European Championship over Victory 7 is now down to ten points, with Jotun and now both Qatar 96 and Qatar 95 in with an outside, but mathematical chance of the title, should either or both Victory outfits hit trouble in the final round of the European Championship in Constanta-Mamaia in Romania on 31 August.
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by Class-1 media 
Devonport, TAS
