Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation president Abdulrahman Al Mannai (centre), Vice Chairman of Losail Circuit Sports Club Khalid Al Remaihi and Batabit Centre Director Mohamed Ghanem Al Kubaisi addressing the media yesterday.
The Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation (QMMF) has just concluded a season with a string of records that also highlight a massive growth of the sport in the country.
“We conducted eight different championships this season. That makes it 26 events in just six months in the season that just concluded last month,” QMMF President Abdulrahman Al Mannai said while announcing details of the 2018-19 motor sport season.
“That is a healthy average of 4.5 events every month. In some months we saw more than five events, local as well as international. Our data shows that 61 cars took part in the last round of the Sprint which is a record,” Al Mannai said at a media briefing.
“We are very happy about it. All of these was discussed during the board meeting. It’s probably be the best season so far,” the QMMF President added. “We had a board meeting this to discuss the season gone by and plans for the next season.
“These are the key highlights of the season we thought we should share with everybody. We saw an increase of 68 percent of license holders this season. The license holders represent new teams and from national champions like Abdulla Al Khelaifi. We saw strong competition in the QSTK with Abdulla and Saeed Al Sulaiti ending up with same number of points.
“The Qatar Motor Academy has been a huge boost for the sport as a whole in the country,” Al Mannai said.
Al Mannai said the last season was the first time the Qatar International Rally was broadcast live on television.
“We also saw an increase in participation of Qataris in international events held in Qatar. There were 13 Qatari entries in Cross Country Rally. I would say that is a very big number considering in the past seasons we had just two or three entries in addition to Nasser Saleh Al Attiyah,” he said.
During the season gone by, QMMF celebrated Al Attiyah’s Dakar Rally win in January.
“We applaud Nasser’s achievements in winning every race he featured in including the Dakar Rally. All of this we think we could achieve is because of the new board and also our partnership with companies like Manateq and other governmental agencies that boosted our activities,” the QMMF President said.
Al Mannai said the 2019-20 season calendar will also be another busy time for motor sport fans in the country.
“We also have a new calendar for new season and have officially released it. We have new regulations for QTTC which is based on competitors and what they want. We had a meeting with them and they voted for the new regulations. We found different ways of connecting to them, keeping the dialogue going. I think that’s also another key success factor in the previous season,” Al Mannai said.
“I believe the bar has gone up now. We also realise that we need to keep it there or aim higher. We are discussing few projects for next season and we are going to announce those soon,” Al Mannai said.
Al Mannai said QMMF has sent Qatar Touring Car Championship (QTCC) winner Abdullah Al Khelaifi to feature in the TCR Europe series.
“Our riders and driver Al Khelaifi are doing well in Europe. For Khelaifi this is his first time in an Europe European championship. On a new circuit and against drivers who have competed in Formula 3 and 4 series he has been able to give us good results. We are expecting his will increase as he gets more comfortable with car, the team and circuits,” Al Mannai said.
