Friday, December 6: An imminent addition to the Zandbergen household has prevented Ferdinand Zandbergen from taking part in this weekend’s Road to Sharjah-Grand Prix of Sharjah on Khalid Lagoon. The Dutchman’s wife is heavily pregnant and could well go into labour as early as this weekend.
The Red Devil SMC F1 Team driver will therefore be unable to improve on his equal ninth place in the Drivers’ Championship and two-time World Champion and team-mate Sami Seliö will race alone when he gives the competitive debut to a new boat this weekend.
Built at the Sharjah International Marine Sports Club, the new twin-sponson, tunnel-hull catamaran was designed by the team at Sharjah Marine. Seliö is no longer a part of the Sharjah Team but was integral in the start of the new boat project and has tested the new catamaran in the UAE in the build-up to race weekend.
The Finn said: “We have the new Sharjah Marine boat where I have been involved by myself since the beginning. It is an honour to be involved with that. We are not sponsored by the Sharjah Marine Club. We split and went our separate ways but the project stayed together. Now, this is the debut of that project, both boats.
“I was able to test the new boat before the Sharjah race. Of course, you are alone on flat waters but the boat felt okay, I was pleased with it but the work will start today when we test with the other boats and the waves. Also, the clock will be ticking. My BaBa had some cracks and we didn’t take the chance with that. We knew where the performance level of the BaBa was and, hopefully, we gain something.
“This is a fresh boat. BaBa was easy to drive and this will be quite similar. We didn’t change too many things because the BaBa was so good. The measurements are a little bit different but I think the main places to focus and gain were with the acceleration and I hope we have something better with this boat.”
The largely carbon fibre and Kevlar hull has been designed to cater for a Mercury APEX engine that delivers around 360HP, a carbon fuel tank, fixed ratio direct drive transmission and power-assisted steering. Various CNC-machined propellers give the race vessel a top speed of around 136mph (218.8km/h) and a 0-60km/h time of around three seconds. The Sharjah Marine boat features the latest in crash box design, HANS head and neck support, air bag and life support systems.
Three have been built so far with two in the possession of the Red Devil SMC F1 Team and one with the Sharjah Team, although Canadian driver Rusty Wyatt is currently in contention for the world title and will use his DAC this weekend when he joins forces with team-mate Filip Roms.
Seliö added: “Rusty has been doing well with the DAC this season and it would be risky to change to a new boat where we don’t have the experience. I think they (Sharjah Team) made the right decision. For me, things have been going well and back together step-by-step. We solved a lot of issues and we hope the new boat won’t bring more problems. Let’s see. Everything so far has been going quite smoothly.”
Several leading drivers attended a pre-event press conference with Sharjah officials and H2O Racing staff at the Sharjah Academy for Astronomy, Space Sciences and Technology on Thursday afternoon.
Official free practice gets underway at 14.00hrs (GMT +4) on Friday afternoon.
