Saeed Al Sulaiti has already made history this year by becoming the first ever full-time Qatari rider to grace the World Superbike starting grid. Now he looks to further cement his name into the record books by becoming the first ever representative from his country to score World Championship points.

Prior to Al Sulaiti, only two other Qatari riders have gone before him in WorldSBK: Talil Al Naimi (four races) and Mashel Al Naimi (two races), entering as wildcards at their home Losail International Circuit between 2005 and 2007. However, Al Sulaiti is the first ever full-time entrant, having signed a deal for 2016 with Lucio Pedercini’s well-respected team, thus becoming team-mate to Sylvain Barrier.

Celebrating his 31st birthday on Monday, Al Sulaiti spent last weekend at Losail to enjoy the opening race weekend of this season’s MotoGP World Championship.

“My goal is to get as much experience as I can,” he explains. “It’s my first year and most of the calendar is new for me; I only knew the two Spanish circuits (MotorLand Aragon and Jerez, from his time in the FIM CEV) and of course my home track in Doha. It’s going to be interesting to try and get some points.”

Hoping he will have scored points by the time he returns home for the Qatar WorldSBK season-closer in October, he now relishes the challenge of Aragon.

“It would be very nice to get some points at the beginning of the season, so I will do my best,” Al Sulaiti concludes, with the knowledge that he scored points in his last motorcycle race at MotorLand, finishing 13th in the 2015 CEV Superbike encounter.

From the opening two WorldSBK rounds of 2016, the Pedercini rider has amassed three 17th place finishes. His only retirement was due to a technical problem, ruling him out of the second race in Thailand when a leaking radiator spilled out hot water onto the rider’s feet and forced him to pull into the pit lane.