RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil – British pilots Paul Bonhomme and Nigel Lamb were still scratching their heads trying to figure out how their rival Hannes Arch ended up winning all 13 Red Bull Air Race World Championship points from a single run through the race track in Rio de Janeiro when the race on Sunday could not be continued due to inclement weather conditions.
But the angry protests from their teams that the Austrian was getting an unfairly large allotment of points – 12 points for being declared the race winner on top of the one point he had won the previous day as the fastest Qualifier – fell on deaf ears. Race Director Drew Searle pointed out that those were the rules that all 14 pilots were flying under all season and when the race was interrupted due to the weather on Sunday. The winner of Saturday's Qualifying, Arch, was then declared the race winner as well -- as spelled out in the race rules.
“It strikes me that 13 points for 80.44 seconds of flying is pretty good pickings,” Bonhomme said of Arch’s record points haul for a single flight as the championship leader boarded a flight home to England. “Personally, I think he should get the 12 points and maybe leave the Qualifying point out of it altogether. It does seem a bit odd to get all those points for one flight.”
The battle over whether Arch, who is third overall in the championship with 27 points now behind Bonhomme (31 points) and Lamb (28 points), should get 13 or 12 points from the Rio race reflects how competitive the sixth Red Bull Air Race World Championship contest has become after only three of eight races this year. With red-hot Arch having now collected a near-perfect 25 out of 26 maximum points from the last two races following his slow start in Abu Dhabi (2 points), the title race is turning into another brutal fight for points that will likely not be decided until the final round of the year in September.
“I think it’s completely wrong,” said Lamb, who was London-bound on the same flight as Bonhomme after collecting 10 points in Rio for taking second place based on the Qualifying result. “The issue is the spirit…and whether or not you should really get two races’ worth of points from within one race. It doesn’t make any sense. I don’t think you should be able to earn two races’ worth of points from one race.”
With the last four world championships not decided until the final race of the season, the fight for every point available has already turned into a wide-open battle in May. Searle said the rules were clear and Arch got all 13 points fair and square.
“We began flying the Top 12 but stopped due to weather,” Searle said. “The weather deteriorated and was forecast to get worse so the Top 12 flying was declared by the Air Race Committee to be invalid. We’re then forced to go back and award the places according to the last valid flying session. Any previous points won are irrelevant and we certainly don’t strip points because a subsequent session is invalid.”
Steve Jones, a former Red Bull Air Race pilot and now a TV analyst, agreed that the rules were clear beforehand and Arch clearly deserved to take all 13 points. “You can’t take away one point from the race win and make that only worth 11 points,” he said.
Arch, who has now won two straight races to raise his career total of victories to five, was clearly pleased to go home with all 13 points for the one brilliant run in Qualifying on Saturday under bright blue skies – he beat Lamb by 0.33 second and Bonhomme by 1.18 seconds. All 14 pilots knew there was rain in the Sunday forecast and that the Qualifying result could end up being the race result as well, as Jones pointed out.
“I’m happy either way,” said Arch, who flashed a wide smile when it was confirmed that he got all 13 points just before the post-race news conference. “Whatever the rules are, I’m happy to follow them.”
Bonhomme was asked how he would feel if it were the other way around and he had been fastest in Qualifying in Rio and could be taking 13 or 12 points home with him in his carry-on bag rather than nine for third: “Oh, I’d want the 13 points,” he said with a laugh, before adding: “No, I think I’d be fair about it.” Bonhomme has 19 points from the last two rounds after getting 12 in Abu Dhabi.
French pilot Nicolas Ivanoff, standing nearby, said it was strange that a pilot could get all 13 points from that one run in Qualifying and said the rule should be changed -- but after the season. “I think if we take the result from the Qualifying to decide the race, then we shouldn’t include the Qualifying point anymore,” said Ivanoff, who took sixth in Rio.
Bonhomme, who has been third now twice in a row after winning the season opener in Abu Dhabi, also reflected in his blog on the bitterness of Arch, who narrowly beat him for the 2008 title, getting all 13 points in Rio: "I can't help thinking he should have got just the 12 (not 13) but then I would say that, wouldn't I?" Bonhomme wrote. "What was the famous quote? 'Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser'...well, I'm sorry to say that I'm not a very good loser."
Searle, the race director, agreed with Bonhomme on that score: "Paul is right -- he isn't suited to losing and I expect that he'll be hungry for points in North America."
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