Team Abu Dhabi’s Thani Al-Qemzi narrowly missed out on pole position to Team Sweden’s Erik Stark for Sunday’s Grand Prix of Harbin, round three of the UIM F1 H2O World Championship, at the Hulan Estuary Wetland Park.

The Swede had set the target lap of 40.65 seconds and Al-Qemzi fell just 0.13 seconds short in a thrilling end to an action-placed BRM Qualifying session that saw spectacular crashes for Frenchman Amaury Jousseaume and double World Champion Sami Selio and an eventual third place for the Victory Team’s Ahmed Al-Hameli.

Team Abu Dhabi’s Alex Carella narrowly missed out on Q3 after carding a fast lap seconds after the session had finished and he will start the race from seventh position. Rashed Al-Qemzi missed out on Q2 with a fastest qualifying lap of 44.61sec and will start from 15th in the third Team Abu Dhabi DAC.

"It was another tense and very close qualifying session but Thani and Alex have shown today that they have the speed and we have the boat set-up to be able to challenge hard for the race win on Sunday," said Salem Al-Remeithi, General Manager of the Abu Dhabi International Marine Sports Club (ADIMSC).

Team Abu Dhabi’s Mohammed Al-Mehairbi moved up to fourth in the UIM F4-S Trophy standings after claiming pole position and finishing second behind Mansoor Al-Mansoori of the Emirates Racing Team in the first of the weekend’s two 25-lap F4-S races.

Thani Al-Qemzi booked his place in Q2 with a time of 42.97sec, but French rookie Amaury Jousseaume of the Maverick F1 Team spectacularly flipped out of qualifying and forced a yellow flag situation after eight minutes of the session. Seven boats would miss out on Q2 and action resumed with just eight minutes remaining. Carella stormed through with a lap of 42.66sec, but Rashed Al-Qemzi was still down in 14th position with five minutes to run. He eventually missed out on Q2, qualified 15th, as Cedric Deguisne, Mike Szymura and Peter Morin were also sidelined.