ABU DHABI - Friday, November 23, 2012 - Four-time World Champion and Hall-of-Fame member Scott Gillman is returning to the cockpit as the UIM F1 H2O World Championship for power boating heads for his home race course in Abu Dhabi next weekend at the 21st Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.
The Los Angeles, California driver will put his Team Manager hat aside and jump in the cockpit of a third Team Abu Dhabi boat. Despite the fact that the UIM rules state that only two of the three boats can technically score points, Scott looks at this opportunity as a good way to help inspire his duo of young drivers and his organization to win back the prestigious Team Points Championship that the club lost a year ago to the neighboring Qatar Team.
The team from Doha is led by current World Champion Alex Carella as the Italian leads the drivers table with 59 points, nine ahead of Team Abu Dhabi's Ahmed Al Hameli who is sidelined for the remainder of the season fighting a tumor that was found late in the summer necessitating him to fly to the United States to get treated.
With Ahmed out of the line-up, teammate and veteran driver Thani Al Qamzi who sits fifth in the championship with 25 points, is searching for his first victory of the season. New teammate Majed Al Mansoori, who comes over from the Class-1 Offshore Series, will be racing in his second event of the season after finishing sixth for his first race in F1 in five years last month at the Grand Prix of China in Liuzhou.
For the veteran Gillman, the numbers don't lie. He is the second winningest driver in UIM F1 H2O history with 23 victories in just 90 starts. He holds the all-time record of reaching the podium in 91% of the time in the races he has finished going 55 of 60 to the box.
The three-time North American champion won his first UIM F1 title his rookie season back in 1997 driving a three year old wooden Seebold built boat. He went on to win titles in 2000, 2002 and 2006 as well. He was leading the 2007 World Championship when he fell ill in Xian, China and dropped out of the tour for the remainder of the season.
Scott's only appearance since Xian was last season when he replaced Al Hameli who was suspended by the UIM for a race, giving Gillman a chance to get his feet wet in the sport once again. He qualified eighth and went on to finish a fine fourth in Kazan, Russia with his first appearance in an F1 boat in four years time.
It will interesting how his race set-up will be and how he takes advantage of another opportunity in the sport that he seems he can't get enough of.
You can follow Scott and the remaining members of the UIM F1 H2O World Championship tour by watching live from the series official website at www.f1h2o.com on both Thursday the 29th for qualifying at 11:00 GMT and the Grand Prix on Friday the 30th at 11:30 GMT from the official World Television feed at the fifth round of the championship at the 21st Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi.
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