Rookie Pete McLeod scores first point of the six-stop championship on home turf
Today, rookie Pete McLeod – the youngest and first-ever Canadian to compete in the Red Bull Air Race Championship – scored a personal victory earning his first point of the season. To the delight of 215,000 cheering spectators, McLeod landed an 11th place finish overall in Windsor, Ontario – the third stop of the six-city championship. This is the first time Red Bull Air Race has landed on Canadian soil. Last year, the race straddled two countries with Windsor and Detroit simultaneously playing host.
“As a rookie, it’s a major milestone for my career to have earned my first championship point but to have earned it here in Canada makes it that much better,” said Pete McLeod. “The energy from my home country and fans in Windsor has been just spectacular. This energy has not only been positive for me but for the whole race team.”
Britain's Paul Bonhomme took home a thrilling win over rival Hannes Arch of Austria securing a dozen points to maintain his second place standing. Even though most of the frontrunners struggled to avoid penalties on the windy, turn-filled course straddling the Canada-U.S. border, Bonhomme managed to fly a series of flawless runs to the Final 4 and was then once again in a class by himself, posting a winning time of 1:08.16 on the 15-gate course. Arch was second, 1.15 seconds behind, and Chambliss took third.
"This was by far the hardest race I've ever won if you look at the times the other guys have been posting all week," said Bonhomme. He said he was relieved that he just missed touching a pylon on the final run. "There were times when I thought I was going to hit a pylon. You just have to push. If you want to win this thing you have to go to the limit. That's the difference between winning or losing: missing the pylon by one millimetre or just hitting it by one millimetre. But we made it. I'm very pleased."
Bonhomme became the pilot with the most number of wins, since the Red Bull Air Race World Championship began, with his ninth victory and first since Perth, Australia in 2008. Mangold is second in the all-time standings with eight career wins. Arch, who won the first race in Abu Dhabi and was third in San Diego, leads the championship with 33 points ahead of Bonhomme on 32 and Nicolas Ivanoff of France in third with 24.
This third stop was also a triumph for the three Americans. Chambliss, the 2006 world champion, got the first podium of the season after struggling with just three points in the first two races thanks to his powerful new engine while Mike Mangold, a two-time champion in 2005 and 2007, got his campaign back on track with a season-best fourth place. Michael Goulian also made a big jump higher, climbing to sixth after coming 14th in the first two races in Abu Dhabi and San Diego.
Windsor was nevertheless a disappointment for Ivanoff. The stylish Frenchman was off to the best start in his career with third in Abu Dhabi and a victory in San Diego but after a bad run in the Top 12, picking up a pair of two-second penalties left him back in ninth place. Australia’s rookie sensation Matt Hall fell to seventh place after taking fifth in his first two races. Hall had two pylon hits in his Super 8 run, including one spectacular direct hit that forced him into a safety climb out.
A total of 290,000 spectators attended the weekend’s racing in Windsor for Canada’s inaugural race. The Red Bull Air Race World Championship heads to Europe for the next stop in Budapest, Hungary on August 19th and 20th.
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