BARCELONA, Spain – Hannes Arch of Austria posted the fastest time in Qualifying at the Red Bull Air Race World Championship on Saturday and picked up a crucial 1 point to narrow Paul Bonhomme’s lead in the championship to 3 points ahead of Sunday’s grand finale in Barcelona. Bonhomme finished a distant 4th in Qualifying behind Arch, Nicolas Ivanoff of France and Australia’s Matt Hall.
Arch, who now has 52 championship points to Bonhomme's 55, had struggled in the first Qualifying session and hit a pylon but rallied in Qualifying 2 with the fastest time of the day, a 1:21.06 that was 1:10 ahead of Ivanoff. An enthusiastic crowd of 350,000 packed the beaches of Barcelona’s Front Maritim to watch Qualifying ahead of Sunday’s final race of the season.
We’ve had so much pressure the last two races," Arch said. "The first run I screwed up and hit a pylon. It was all down to my last run. It’s really important that we got the point. We’ve only got a small chance and the one point is very important. I did lots of mistakes in the Qualifying. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t work. I just tried to do my best. I’ll try my best tomorrow.”
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