Defending Motorcity UAE Sportbikes champion Mahmoud Tannir admits he couldn’t be happier after winning the second race in the 600 Class on day two of the Motorsport Festival weekend, saying it was important to send a strong message to the rest of the field.
Tannir concedes he’s been struggling with the new tyres but explained that a change in the set-up between race one and race two on Friday made all the difference.
The Dubai-based Lebanese rider had finished second on his Duseja Moto Triumph Daytona in race one, 2.729 seconds behind Surya Raja – last year’s Rookie Cup champion.
But Tannir’s team got to work and a set-up change immediately bore fruit in the second race, which the reigning champion led from the very start. He had opened up a 5.6 second gap on Raja by the fifth lap before a crash by one of the rookies – Nasir Hussein Syed – forced the race to end prematurely.
“It meant so much to win that second race,” Tannir told Sport360°. “Because also in the first race I knew I had the pace. If I had one more lap I could have caught Surya Raja, because he was losing pace and I was gaining pace.
“But the bike wasn’t allowing me to push more. So after the set-up change and the win, I was really happy. The whole team was happy because they worked so hard.”
Tannir wanted a complete second race, especially with how great he felt on the bike, but he believed he would have won anyway.
Meanwhile in the 1000 Class, Vladimir Ivanoff, who had never raced in the UAE before, powered to overall victory in both races.
Ivanoff, who rides in Moto 2, won the first race by 9.419 seconds, ahead of British Superbikes rider Patric Muff on a Honda. Best among the locally-based riders was Gernot Dobida on a Honda, who was third in the first race and runner-up in the shortened second.
Nasir Hussein Syed, who crashed out on lap three of the second race, was taken to Rashid Hospital as a precautionary measure.
The championship will now take a winter break until February, and the schedule is expected to be a busy with two races postponed from the washed-out December 1 weekend.
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