Pilot Quotes - Race Day, Windsor
Hannes Arch (1st) “I was looking out at the river in the morning and thought 'oh no, it's the wrong kind of wind, it's not going to be a good race' because of strong winds from the side. But it was a really good race. The conditions were really good. Everyone did faster times and from round to round we just tried to challenge ourselves. I didn't change my strategy a lot but I thought just calm down and be smart. What's really important for me is to have a good feeling. I was mentally scratched. You need to go out there and prove to yourself that you can trust yourself and don't make big mistakes but do a safe run out there. That gave me a lot of confidence. I didn't want to get distracted too much by Paul's fast times. I just tried to analyse that and thought 'I can do that too' and if the others make mistakes then I'm faster.”
Paul Bonhomme (2nd) “If I look at the times maybe I could have been a little bit more aggressive in the 270 turns but I bet Matt and Hannes thought over the week that there's a time not to be too aggressive. That was probably in the back of my mind. I actually really enjoyed this afternoon's racing. Obviously I wasn't sitting there watching it, I was busy flying, but I'd imagine from a fan's point of view it was a very exciting race. I'm very frustrated that I showed Hannes the ideal line in that 270-degree turn. The engine is going beautifully and we're looking forward to New York. It really was a question of where you go in this track. If you just back off for half a nanosecond that's going to translate into half a second in your lap time. So you’ve really got to go right up to the limit but not beyond.”
Kirby Chambliss (3rd) "It feels great and I'm excited. I want to thank Nigel Lamb (for hitting a pylon). Thank you Nigel, I appreciate that and it helped a lot. I'm real happy about the result we had because we've struggled all week long. We've had two engine changes. I want to thank my crew and especially my technician Jason Resop for the all-nighters out in the hangar trying to change these motors. We've got an engine change going forward to New York so I think we'll be all set. We'll push these guys a little bit harder."
Nigel Lamb (4th) “Well, overall I feel pretty pleased. My first run was slower than I hoped so I was delighted that I could knock nearly 4 seconds off that time in the Super 8. The MXS-R feels fantastic and it’s flying just beautifully. I am kicking myself a bit that I hit an easy gate in the final that wasn't giving me any trouble all week, but I was really going for it, all-out, cutting the margins as fine as I could. So I'm not surprised that a slight loss of focus ended in a pylon hit. I'm annoyed to have thrown away some championship points but I'm still up there and it's only halfway through the season. Our aim now is to prepare for New York. The course there is like a bumble bee in a jam jar; very busy and lots of tight turns... I think I'll like it!”
Matthias Dolderer (5th) “So 5 is definitely my number here in Windsor. It’s better than last year but I had hoped to get into the final after the first run. It’s still OK though and I’m feeling comfortable back in the track with good lines. I think with the new V3 I can open a battle with the top pilots. The Red Rocket has been a really nice plane and we never had any trouble with it. It’s to be held in honour.”
Michael Goulian (6th) “You always come back and wonder if you could’ve done better. The truth of the matter is that I went out there with a plan and executed it twice as we wanted to, but it just wasn’t quite enough. It is disappointing when you feel you get everything out of the plane that it has, but perhaps it was about the lines too, but you never know. We were planning on having the other engine which was a lot lighter and we put some heavier brakes and tyres on it which we didn’t have time to change. We’ll lighten it up before New York and then just try to work on flying perfect. The track is a nice circle a lot like Perth so we’ll have to go out there and just hope for the best.”
Nicolas Ivanoff (7th) “It was a really bad day for me and if you compare the times from the first and the second flight, it wasn’t good. I have to find a solution to be faster. Windsor was a really tricky track but very interesting. We can see the first pilots are really fast and I don’t know why I’m not. I’m still 3 seconds slower than the others. It’s really hard but for New York I’ll just have to see. We have to change something in the engine but what can I do? We’ll try to look forward to it but I don’t have new engines, only a spare old one and I don’t think it is any faster than this one.”
Sergey Rakhmanin (8th) “The second flight wasn’t good and I made mistakes. It was slower without penalties anyway. I used a different engine set-up but maybe it was a different line and I couldn’t do as well as in the Top 12. Without gate 13 the track was easier but I was automatically aiming for the missing gate even though I prepared to go straight to the chicane. I don’t think we have time to change anything before New York but if we want to improve we have to seriously change the aerodynamics and the engine. We’re thinking about whether we can do this before the European races.”
Pete McLeod (9th) “I got a 2 second penalty and the other guys flew clean. It doesn’t really matter where you’re racing, it’s still a bad time to take a penalty. I was a little high in the chicane and didn’t settle into the track until gate 3. You can’t afford to give up the first three gates of the track, not being in the groove. It was a challenging week for me in Windsor and a lot of pressure. I’ve had a really busy schedule for the last three weeks but I was happy with my flying yesterday. I had a lot of fun in the track. I’m just disappointed at the moment, feeling pretty sour. We’ll start regrouping for New York straight away but I’m not in the mood to party right now.”
Peter Besenyei (10th) “I had no heating problem today with the engine but I did have a problem with one of the injectors so the engine didn’t run smoothly. It’s a long way to come but of course we are happy to introduce the new aeroplane into the Red Bull Air Race. It’s the only plane from Europe, which makes us proud. Obviously we need a couple of races to set up the plane and to make some small modifications, changes and improvements. It’s the same with the engine but I think the plane is nice and has great potential. We’re looking forward to the future. The New York track has lots of turns so we’ll see how the Corvus does but we hopefully will have it fully ready by the Budapest race.”
Alejandro Maclean (11th) “We made the biggest mistake; we decided to change the engine set-up after yesterday's results and today just before entering the track the engine computer gave all kinds of wrong and bad readings as a result. I flew a really bad race with very little concentration. We hope to learn the lesson and avoid these kind of changes just before a race.”
Martin Sonka (12th) “Nothing bad really happened and I actually flew like I wanted and quite carefully without pylon hits. Unfortunately we had a 2 second penalty and 1 for insufficient smoke. The wind was a little bit different and stronger than yesterday so I was quite careful in the 270-degree turn. Maybe I was too careful. I spoke to my team and they said I still had smoke so I don’t know about that. I just wanted to fly a smooth line. Other pilots flew really well and without big mistakes. Of course we hope for our first championship point in New York. Our slow speed is always a problem but it shouldn’t be such a disadvantage there.”
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