Defending Champion Hannes Arch Wins First Race
Britain's Paul Bonhomme was "pipped to the post" Saturday in the
first race in this year's Red Bull Air Race World Championship in
Abu Dhabi. Hannes Arch of Austria came from behind to win the race
with Nicolas Ivanoff of France taking third place.
Another Briton, Nigel Lamb, established himself as a force to be
reckoned with this year, taking fourth in the sizzling heat of the
capital of the United Arab Emirates. Australia's Matt Hall, one of
four rookies in the championship this year, had an outstanding
performance in his very first race, grabbing a sensational fifth
place on the challenging 6.6-km course of Air Gates set up just
above the turquoise waters of the Arabian Gulf.
Arch, the defending world champion,
saved his best for last, blazing to victory to the delight of the
large crowd of spectators watching from the rim of the Corniche
with a time of 1:24.60 - a full 0.89 seconds faster than Bonhomme's
outstanding effort just moments earlier. Arch had stumbled in the
Super 8 session and only just qualified for the Final 4 in fourth
place. Arch, who also collected one championship point with his
victory in Friday's Qualifying session, then opened up his throttle
in the final on a day when temperatures hit 40 degrees Celsius to
pick up the 12 points. He will take a three-point lead over
Bonhomme (10 points) to the next race in San Diego.
Bonhomme, who had won here in Abu Dhabi last year and led the
championship for most of the 2008 season before stumbling late in
the year to finish second to Arch, was surprised that his fabulous
Final 4 time of 1:25.49 was not enough for the victory. “It
felt like a pretty good run,” Bonhomme said. “I was
actually quite pleased with that.”
Ivanoff, who took delivery of his Edge 540 just four weeks ago,
was elated to be back on the podium after spending most of last
year in the lower half of the field. "It's really a surprise
because I only got the plane one month ago and you can't really
expect a result like that," he said. "It's a new plane. The
technicians were working through the night for the last week to get
it ready for the race. It's a good plane. I need to avoid making so
many mistakes. But if you want to go fast, you have to take
risks."
Another rookie, Matthias Dolderer of Germany, also had a bright
start to his Red Bull Air Race World Championship career, taking
11th place and collecting his first championship point. Dolderer
had started the week cautiously and seemed to improve with each
training and racing session.
The 15 pilots in the largest field ever assembled in the history
of the race fly the single-propeller planes weighing 540 kg with
tremendous precision, reaching speeds of up to 370 kilometres per
hour and enduring forces of up to 12G as they navigate through the
turn-filled courses just metres above the surface.
Last year, more than 3.5 million fans around the world attended
the Red Bull Air Race World Championship, which were watched by a
total of some 500 million television viewers in 115 countries on
six continents.