SALZBURG, Austria – Back-to-back wins for Team Abu Dhabi in both Perth and Rio de Janeiro have put pilot Hannes Arch firmly back in the spotlight after a disastrous start to the 2010 Red Bull Air Race season in March. Arch was knocked out in the Top 12 round of the first race of the season and only collected 2 championship points while defending champion Paul Bonhomme stormed ahead with a first place finish.
Arch seems to have found his stride after three races as we approach the halfway point in the eight-round championship. Although he remains in third place overall – 4 points behind table leader Bonhomme – the Austrian is certainly on the up. Arch, who has 27 points overall, has also closed the gap on Nigel Lamb, now only a single point ahead with a total of 28 points after a second place result in Rio.
Arch’s winning streak could be set to continue as the championship moves on to Windsor, Canada, on 5 and 6 June. The 2008 world champion is focused on running an efficient team this year, after admitting that in 2009 he was consumed with defending his title, which put undue pressure on the team.
“I am trying to be more cautious this year but I have to work against my personality,” Arch says, wrangling with his ultra competitive streak. “I always want to be the fastest and it doesn’t matter if I’m leading by a long way. This year I’m trying to calm down in pushing the boundaries from race to race. I want to think more long term and to get the stress out of my team. If I do that I get the stress out of myself. If you think for every race you want to be the fastest, then it’s too much stress. The team gets exhausted and then that comes back to me and I don’t perform.”
Taking time out
Also known for his more philosophical side, Arch says he needs a calming antidote to the high-pressure race environment and travels to Hawaii to get some important time out from the competition. Spending much of the off-season on the paradise island, Arch also flew there after the Perth round of the 2010 championship to unwind ahead of the Rio race.
“I had that space in Hawaii when I was relaxing and I needed that,” he confides, explaining that the psychological distance from the race helped him to devise a strategy for 2010 where he would focus on the overall picture rather than being obsessed with each race. “I knew that it was the only way long term. The cool thing about that is then you don’t have to win the next race. That way you know that basically your performance is going in the right direction. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but I will never be really far behind. That’s important for me.”
Flying the first in the new generation of Edge 540 race planes, Arch has reviewed all aspects of his team set-up and introduced new data analysis technology as well as expanding his support team.
“To win you need the right team, the right moment, luck, everything,” he says. “If it happens, it happens, if not then I still want to set new standards in this race because I believe in the future of the Red Bull Air Race. I am definitely more focused this year – it’s a more healthy focus – and I’m not stressing my team any more. Last year I was like ‘OK put in the new stuff’; I didn’t want to wait for it to be fully developed. If something would save 2 hundredths of a second, I wanted it done and it was too much.”
Moving on to the Canadian leg of the championship, Arch is confident his new strategy is working well and the team functioning as he hoped. “You just have to do your best to stay calm and that should be my rule for the rest of the season,” he confirms.
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