AL AIN // Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa and Mohammed Al Dhaheri were left to reflect on what could have been last night as both Emiratis saw their chances of reaching today's DD2 final at the Rotax Max Challenge Grand Finals ruined by accidents.
Sheikh Khalid was forced to retire on lap six of his final qualifying heat when running in 19th place yesterday at Al Ain Raceway.
His 32.6-horsepower kart was hit from behind by another driver, and then further contact pushed him into the barriers and damaged his vehicle.
"I had made a really good start and was going well," he said. "Then I got nudged from behind, and then at the next corner I got pushed wide until I was in the barriers and it damaged the steering on the kart.
"It was hugely disappointing as I had done nothing wrong."
A similar fate befell Al Dhaheri as he crashed out on the first lap of his final heat, and the 25 year old also blamed contact with another driver for his setback.
"I dived down the inside [of another driver], he turned on me, he pushed me to the outside, I went over the kerbs and there was a lot of bumps there so I went up in the air.
"I landed and had a lot of cars in front of me. I hit one of them and it took out my kart. There was nothing I could do."
The top 28 drivers of the 72 competing in the category qualified automatically for today's final. The failure of Sheikh Khalid and Al Dhaheri to finish in their heats left them respectively ranked 47th and 50th.
They both competed in a "Last Chance" race in the afternoon, but neither finished in one of the top six spots needed to qualify for the final, ensuring they will have to watch today's action from the sidelines.
Al Dhaheri said: "I knew I had the speed and I had shown it in sessions, but unfortunately this is racing. Sometimes these things happen.
"Sometimes it is your day, sometimes it isn't, and it went against me today."
It was not a good day for the UAE team as a whole with only Maurits Knopjes and Arnoud Bouf, in the DD2 Masters category, qualifying to race today.
The Omani brothers, Abdullah and Sanad Al Rawahi, missed out in the Junior Max and Senior Max categories, respectively, Patrick Jarjour and Hussein Ali failed to progress in DD2. Nikita Miliakov was eliminated early in the Senior Max, as was Andrew Fuller in the DD2 Masters.
Despite only two drivers prevailing in the heats, the UAE are 20th out of 57 in the Nations Cup, which tallies all the results of the 264 drivers taking part in the finals.
Canada lead the way from South Africa on 650 points, with the UAE 320 points off top spot.
Today's action - following a warm-up session for each category - will see pre-finals to decide the grid order for the finals.