Thursday, 17 December, SHARJAH (UAE): Jean-Baptiste Botti will have to produce his absolute best if he is to win the UIM-ABP Runabout GP1 world title at the final Grand Prix of the season in Sharjah this weekend.

The 28-year-old from Porto Vecchio, Corsica sits in third place in the title race, two points behind European Champion Jeremy Perez and 12 points adrift of championship leader, Qatar’s Thamer Al Darwish.

The charismatic Corsican has at times been outstanding in a highly competitive world class line up, four different riders taking race wins, three different winning GP titles.

Botti’s Achilles heel may be reliability if he pushes his Sea-Doo Rotax unit to the limit; in Qatar he won the season-opener but had a technical issue before race 2, coming out from the pits late and joining the race at the back and almost two laps down to salvage what may well be two valuable points.

The title race ratcheted up a notch in Italy after Botti was cited for missing a buoy in race 1 by rival Khalifa Belselah and disqualified, losing his win. His response was just breathtaking, moving up from last place and passing all his rivals to take the lead by lap 4, running out the winner by 50.2 seconds and making his feelings rather clear!

Last time out in Liuzhou, China he looked to be on course for the win-double but engine reliability struck again, breaking in race 2 when leading.

Botti has it all to do and,If hauling his 450hp machine around for two 25 minute races wasn’t enough, he will also race in Ski GP1 taking over the number 7 bike of Morgan Poret who misses the final race of the year after injuring himself in a recent event in Thailand.