Scorching day for Red Bull Air Race season opener in Abu Dhabi

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Scorching day for Red Bull Air Race season opener in Abu Dhabi

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Scorching day for Red Bull Air Race season opener in Abu Dhabi

by Erik Kay, Mar 27, 2010

The first race of the 2010 Red Bull Air Race World Championship season will take to the air this afternoon in Abu Dhabi, where scorching temperatures and shifting winds will make the 5.657-km long track set up over the turquoise waters of the Arabian Gulf especially difficult.

Hannes Arch of Austria won the one point for Qualifying on Friday with a thrilling victory over Nigel Lamb of Britain and defending champion Paul Bonhomme, who took second and third, respectively. Arch won the race here last year but narrowly lost the 2009 championship to Bonhomme. The Austrian, who won the 2008 championship, will be looking to win the 12 points for first place up for grabs today for his Team Abu Dhabi to get his 2010 campaign off to a rocking start in front of thousands of fans watching from the Corniche beaches in the UAE capital city.

"There are five teams here that could all end up within a second of each other," Arch said. "The planes and abilities are all about the same level here. If you make even a small mistake you'll end up fifth or sixth. I think the world championship will be even more extreme and more difficult this year. Paul isn't going to gift us anything. So it's going to be really exciting all the way to the end."

Bonhomme, who had the fastest net time in Qualifying yesterday but was hit by a two-second penalty in Q1 that dropped him just behind Arch, was on track to beat Arch in Q2 but hit the final Air Gate. The normally mild mannered Brit let out a stream of unpublishable expletives over his cockpit radio after the rare pylon hit. Bonhomme, widely regarded as the most precise of pilots in the championship, went all of 2008, for instance, without hitting a single pylon.

Lamb’s Team Breitling has done well here this year in training and Qualifying yesterday with their impressive new winglets that curl up at the end of the wings and help the plane make tighter turns through the 15-Gate obstacle course. He was delighted to move up to second in Qualifying as was Australia’s Matt Hall, who climbed up to a competitive fourth behind Bonhomme.

The Wild Card starts at 2:15 p.m. with the five slowest Qualifiers battling it out for one of the last two tickets for the Top 12 competition that starts at 3 p.m. The 10 fastest pilots in Qualifying advanced automatically to the Top 12. After that, the fastest eight move to the Top 8 and then the fastest four advance to the Final Four, where the winner and podium will be determined.