The 2010 Red Bull Air Race World Championship was the eighth official Red Bull Air Race World Championship series. Paul Bonhomme became champion for the second successive year, finishing each of the six rounds of the championship in the top three placings, two of which were victories. Hannes Arch was the only other round winner, taking four victories but finished four points behind Bonhomme, after an eleventh-place finish in the season-opener in the United Arab Emirates. Nigel Lamb finished third with three runner-up placings, and three fourth places.
At the end of the season, Red Bull Air Race GmbH announced that the series would take a one-year break in 2011, to reorganize and strengthen development and commercial aspects of the series.World Championship confirms one-year break in 2011
Aircraft and pilots No.PilotAircraftRounds Contested Kirby Chambliss Edge 540 All Péter Besenyei MX Aircraft MXS-R All Adilson Kindlemann MX Aircraft MXS-R 1 Martin Šonka Edge 540 All Nigel Lamb MX Aircraft MXS-R All Sergey Rakhmanin MX Aircraft MXS-R All Matthias Dolderer Edge 540 All Nicolas Ivanoff Edge 540 All Hannes Arch Edge 540 All Yoshihide Muroya Edge 540 1–4, 6 Alejandro Maclean MX Aircraft MXS-R All Paul Bonhomme Edge 540 All Pete McLeod Edge 540 All Matt Hall MX Aircraft MXS-R 1–4, 6 Michael Goulian Edge 540 All
New pilots Two new pilots joined the Red Bull Air Race Series for 2010 season as Mike Mangold and Glen Dell left the series. They were Martin Šonka from the Czech Republic and Adilson Kindlemann from Brazil.
Race calendar and results RoundLocationCountryDateFastest QualifyingWinning PilotWinning Aircraft 1 Mina' Zayid, Abu Dhabi United Arab Emirates March 26–27 Hannes Arch Paul Bonhomme Edge 540 2 Swan River, Perth Australia April 17–18 Paul Bonhomme Hannes Arch Edge 540 3 Flamengo Beach, Rio de Janeiro Brazil May 8–9 Hannes Arch Hannes Arch Edge 540 4 Windsor, Ontario Canada June 5–6 Nigel Lamb Hannes Arch Edge 540 5 New York City United States June 19–20 Hannes Arch Paul Bonhomme Edge 540 6 EuroSpeedway Lausitz Germany August 7–8 Paul Bonhomme Hannes Arch Edge 540 7 River Danube, Budapest Hungary Cancelled 8 Lisbon Portugal Cancelled
Championship standings Rank Pilot Race Results (Place) PointsUAE AUS BRA CAN USA GER 1 Paul Bonhomme 1 3* 3 2 1 2* 64 2 Hannes Arch 11* 1 1* 1 4* 1 60 3 Nigel Lamb 2 4 2 4* 2 4 55 4 Kirby Chambliss 6 8 5 3 3 6 41 5 Pete McLeod 5 5 7 9 5 8 33 6 Nicolas Ivanoff 9 6 6 7 6 5 33 7 Matt Hall 8 2 4 DSQ EX 3 31 8 Matthias Dolderer 7 7 10 5 10 7 26 9 Michael Goulian 4 11 8 6 7 13 24 10 Péter Besenyei 3 10 11 10 8 9 21 11 Alejandro Maclean 12 13 9 11 9 10 9 12 Yoshihide Muroya 10 9 12 DNS 12 5 13 Sergey Rakhmanin 15 12 14 8 12 14 4 14 Martin Šonka 13 14 13 12 11 11 2 15 Adilson Kindlemann 14 0 (*) indicates the pilot received an extra point for the fastest time in Qualifying
Position 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th 12th 13th 14th 15th Qualifying Fastest Points 12 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 0 0 0 1
Incidents At about 11:50AM local time, (3:50 UTC) on 15 April, Brazilian pilot Adilson Kindlemann crashed his MXS-R"MX Aircraft News ", MX Aircraft, February 11, 2010, Retrieved April 15, 2010 aircraft into the Swan River in Perth, Western Australia during practice. Rescuers were on the scene within one minute. Kindlemann was taken to Royal Perth Hospital where it was found that he had no serious injuries. It was only the previous day (14 April) that the pilots completed their underwater emergency training. Kindlemann was the first South American to contest the Air Race and was three-times Brazilian aerobatics champion (Unlimited category) when he joined the competition with 18 years aerobatics experience; over 11,000 hours flight time; and about 1,200 hours of aerobatics, as detailed on the official Red Bull Air Race website."Profile-Adilson Kindlemann ", Red Bull Air Race, Retrieved April 15, 2010“Air-race plane crashes into river ”, The Age, April 15, 2010, Retrieved April 15, 2010
During qualifying for the race in Windsor, Matt Hall nearly crashed his aircraft into the Detroit River.Detroit Free Press: Pilot Matt Hall tells how he avoided crash into Detroit River The aircraft lost lift after a series of high-G turns and dipped both wings and a wheel into the water before Hall powered up and out of what could have been a bad wreck. His aircraft was too damaged to continue and he was disqualified from competing both that weekend and the following race in New York.Australia's Race Pilot, Matt Hall will not compete in New York
Spanish pilot Alejandro Maclean was killed on 17 August, when his aircraft crashed into the ground while performing a manoeuvre during a training exercise at Casarrubios del Monte in Spain.
References
External links Red Bull Air Race official website Unofficial Air Race website Smoke-On.com A Red Bull Air Race Fan Site Bleacher Report's Red Bull Air Race Page