But Arch Victorious In Final Race
Britain's Paul Bonhomme won the 2010 Red Bull Air Race World
Championship by taking second place behind Austria's Hannes Arch in
the final race of the season at the EuroSpeedway Lausitz in Germany
on Sunday. In another thrilling duel, Australia’s Matt Hall
got the third podium of his career with third place in the 50th
race in the sport’s history while Germany’s Matthias
Dolderer finished seventh to the delight of the big home crowd. A
total of 118,000 spectators watched the racing this weekend.
Bonhomme, who also won the 2009 championship, finished the
six-race season with 64 points and two victories, in Abu Dhabi and
New York. Arch, the 2008 champion, ends the year with 60 points and
four wins, in Perth, Rio, Windsor and Germany. Britain's Nigel Lamb
ended up third overall on 55 points.
Arch stopped the clock through the 15-gate track set up in the
infield of the EuroSpeedway Lausitz race track in 1:12.30 while
Bonhomme took second in 1:12.66 and Hall was in 1:17.41 - hurt by
four seconds in penalties. Lamb was knocked out of the Final Four
due to a flat tire suffered just before take-off.
“It’s very special,” Bonhomme said, who let
out a loud celebration cheer over his cockpit radio after he
clinched the title. Bonhomme, the most successful pilot in the
history of the sport with 13 career victories, admitted he was
disappointed that he failed to beat Arch in the season finale even
though he did get a record 13th straight podium with second place
on a sunny afternoon in Germany.
“It feels good,” Bonhomme said. “The key thing
is that we won back-to-back championships, that’s what
I’m going to be taking away. I’ve been saying all year
I’ve been relaxed and had stayed that way right up to this
race. But I knew this race could make or break the whole
championship. The day didn’t go exactly as I planned but
I’m very pleased about the whole year.” Bonhomme is the
first pilot to win back-to-back titles and joins American Mike
Mangold as the only two-time champion in the eight-year race
history.
Arch, who now has seven career wins, pushed Bonhomme to the
limits all season and kept the pressure on his British rival to the
final round. Bonhomme had posted faster times than Arch all weekend
and had won the Qualifying point earlier on Sunday. But Arch pulled
out all the stops in the Final Four, posting a blistering time that
Bonhomme could not match.
“I knew I could win the race because the plane is fast and
it’s a fast track,” Arch said, taking great
satisfaction about winning four of the six races this year.
“We might not have won the championship but we have four
races and have lots of track records this year. We’re happy
about that, it’s a good feeling.“
Bonhomme, Arch, Lamb, Hall and Dolderer told a news conference
after the race they hoped the race would return to the EuroSpeedway
in the future. “It’s a superb venue,” Bonhomme
said. “We’re a motor racing sport and we worked
beautifully together. I hope that when the Air Race season fires up
again we have a lot more venues like this and that we indeed come
back here again as well.”