AL AIN // A 20-year-old student has been crowned the national 'King of Drift' after a fast and furious final.
Jihad Hassan beat off the best drivers in the country at the Red Bull Car Park Drift event at Al Ain Airport on Friday night.
He sped through several rounds in his red Nissan Silvia and earned a perfect score from the judges.
Hassan, a Lebanese business management student at Dubai's American University, will now go on to represent the UAE in the regional finals for the Middle East and Africa title.
"The competition was strong and stressful. It's been one the best races I've ever entered," he said.
The judges included race-ace Abdo Feghali, who this month broke the Guinness World Record for the longest drift in a vehicle at Yas Marina Circuit.
He said the track's slippery conditions separated the good drivers from the bad. "The top drifters proved to be extremely clever in knowing how to use this to their advantage, which is undoubtedly why they earned the win," he said.
The judges doled out penalty points for hitting the track's separators, leaving the track or losing control of the car.
Feghali said this year's contest "clearly reflects the awareness that drifting has gained in the region".
The event was Hassan's third attempt at winning the competition and he is glad all his practise has finally paid off.
"Hopefully, I will be crowned the Middle East's King of Drift," he said.
eharnan@thenational.ae
At Eternity’s Gate
Director: Julian Schnabel
Starring: Willem Dafoe, Oscar Isaacs, Mads Mikkelsen
Three stars
Brief scores:
Huesca 0
Real Madrid 1
Bale 8'
Pros%20and%20cons%20of%20BNPL
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Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
Bloomberg
Roger Federer's 2018 record
Australian Open Champion
Rotterdam Champion
Indian Wells Runner-up
Miami Second round
Stuttgart Champion
Halle Runner-up
Wimbledon Quarter-finals
Cincinnati Runner-up
US Open Fourth round
Shanghai Semi-finals
Basel Champion
Paris Masters Semi-finals
