Thursday, 3 October, LIUZHOU (China): Runabout GP1 ace Yousef Al Abdulrazzaq knows he will face a strong challenge from a trio of French riders over the next two days as he goes in search of his second Grand Prix title of the season in the UIM-ABP Aquabike Class Pro Grand Prix of China in Liuzhou.

The Kuwaiti rider and 2012 Slalom World Champion dominated the season-opener and blitzed the opposition last time out in Italy, taking maximum points and leads’ the title race by 14-points.

Leading the assault will be second-placed Jeremy Perez coming off the back off one of his strongest starts to a season, but an even bigger threat is likely from defending World Champion and last year’s double heat winner in Liuzhou, Francois Medori, and 10-time World Champion Cyrille Lemoine.

But after today’s official qualifying Abdulrazzaq looks to be on course to maintain his supremacy on the ABP tour after taking his first pole position win of the year in a time 1min 16.66s.

Out of the French trio it was Cyrille Lemoine who looks the most likely to seriously challenge the Kuwait star, going second quickest but a telling 1.78 seconds of the pace and admitting that it will be tough to beat him [Abdulrazzaq] unless he makes mistakes.

Perez continued his impressive form going third quickest to finish in front of countryman Teddy Pons, but it was a disappointing day for Medori finishing down in seventh.

China’s Wu Ronghua produced the best performance of the CMA backed riders finishing in fifth place with Polish rider Andrzej Wisniewski rounding out the top six.

For the full set of results go to the results section in aquabike.net