Jay Price leads Qatar Team to a dominating 2008 F1 Title

It took him over twenty-five years to find his place in racing history, but Jay Price kept his dreams alive while his determination to make it to the top level of the sport paid off after only 21 career race starts.

The New Orleans, Louisiana veteran led his Qatar Team to their first ever World title winning the U.I.M. F1 World Championship Series for power boating scoring 105 points and capturing the title by a 36 point margin. Jay becomes the third different American driver to secure the title in the 28 years since the championship began back in 1981.

The Qatar Team under the auspices of the Qatar Marine Sports Federation (QMSF) was an international effort with personnel from four different nations leading the effort that was put together just two years ago with the blessing from His Excellency Sheikh Hassan bin Jabor Al-Thani a qualified Class 1 international racer in his own right.

Jay, who languished in the lesser formula’s for the past twenty years and was a fixture in Mexico and Cuba having won numerous titles in the 1990’s, got a break a few years back racing in the Middle East and Formula 2 tour. He was awarded the job as lead driver of the newly established team based out of Doha by the QMSF after the injuries to Mohammed Al-Ali at the start of the 2006 campaign forced his retirement. Once getting into the rhythm of F1, Jay now has put together a devastating string of podium performances, having reached the top three in every race he’s finished since the final event of the 2007 campaign which has now stretched to seven and still counting into 2009.

At the start of the 2008 campaign Jay was given a new boat from the DAC shops out of Lake Como in Italy and right out of the gate he showed he was going to be a serious player for the title run by coming home 1.76 seconds behind Grand Prix of Qatar winner Jonas Andersson at his home Grand Prix after qualifying fifth.

The Grand Prix of Portugal in the lovely city of Portimao on the Algarve coast saw Jay charge his way to his first victory of his career after a ferocious fight with young driver Ahmad Al Hameli of Team Abu Dhabi that lasted for over 40 laps before the veteran driver faked one way and went to the other side and drove away to a 16 second victory and took the lead in the championship that he would never loose for the rest of the season.

The next event at the Grand Prix of Finland turned out to be one of the roughest races in the history of the sport. High winds turned Lake Vesijarvi into a swirling mass of water. It was so rough that the race near downtown Lahti was started with a flying green flag start instead of the usual Le Mans start off the dock. This one event showed the talent of the American driver as Jay used all of his years of experience to charge from 18th position to finish 2nd . This was even more remarkable since he was forced to do a slow drive thru penalty after missing a buoy according to the U.I.M. officials on this day.

At the Grand Prix of Russia in St. Petersburg, Jay’s only equipment failure was actually good news for the driver who was struggling to stay in the top ten in the race while fighting a bout of a severe case of the flu that haunted him all weekend.

The series took the summer recess because of the Olympic Games and the second half of the season would determine the championship. Jay, held a 10 point lead over Swedish ace Andersson who had won two victories at the time, but once again Price took advantage of others misfortunes. He won for the second time at the Grand Prix of China in Liuzhou capturing the trophy by 12.34 seconds over Australian pilot David Trask. That victory was now forcing the competition into almost panic mode to take the title away.

Two weeks later at the Grand Prix of China in Shenzhen saw Price start third as he came within 1.77 seconds of winning another event while pushed defending World Champion Sami Selio for all 50 laps.