Arif Al Zaffain and Nadir Bin Hendi cruised to a comfortable victory in the opening round of the 2014 UIM Skydive Dubai XCAT World Series on Saturday.

The Fazza team were untroubled after starting from pole position and maintained their lead throughout the 15-lap race, held off the Dubai International Marine Club. Victory Team’s Salem Al Adidi and Talib Al Sayed started in second but were eventually overtaken by the Skydive Dubai duo of Sultan Al Dhaheri and Jay Price.

Mouawad (Omar Danial and Gary Ballough) started the race in ninth position but the Swiss-American combination powered their way through the field to finish in fourth.

Thrilled with yet another win in Dubai (after taking the overall 2013 series title here a month ago), Fazza driver Bin Hendi said: “It’s a great honour to win again in Dubai. We finished the last series with a win in Dubai and now we came back and repeat it. This victory just shows that Fazza is always No1.”

Skydive’s Price admitted that a different strategy on when to take their mandatory two long laps may well have benefited his team but was happy with second spot.

“We should have done our long laps in the beginning so that we didn’t waste time trying to overtake the Victory Team but we got there in the end,” he said.

“We were very happy with the set up this morning compared to yesterday, because yesterday we weren’t as fast.

“I think if we had this setup yes- Good opening round: Skydive Dubai powered to second overall after starting the race from third on the grid. terday, we could have been on pole position.”

With Fazza now topping the overall standings with 400 points, the action now moves to Fujairah for the second round of the series from February 12-14.