Red Bull Air Race 2016: Matthias Dolderer wins Budapest

The rain came down in Budapest, but finally Sunday afternoon saw some racing. Germany’s Matthias Dolderer took his second win of the season and extended his lead in the World Championship to 15 points.

With Saturday a washout, and Sunday morning facing torrential rain too it was touch and go whether there would be any racing at all. But in the end, pilots got in the air and, although the complete race programme had to be cut short, Dolderer emerged the winner.

He said: “It was crazy with the rain and wind. After a penalty in my first flight today I thought it was just a bad weekend, but then the second flight went really well.”

He added: “Overall I’m happy. I’m counting it race by race. I don't care about the lead I have, this is just showing that all our work in the offseason is paying off and at the next race we start at zero."

Hannes Arch was in second place, and said, “I think Budapest likes me, and I like Budapest.” He added: “I like the narrow track and the fact that it's very demanding. This weekend we coped really well with the stress of the weather and I'm happy with my second place. I would love to have taken the first place [but] Matthias did a great job.”

Third overall Matt Hall called it a “hard week and a hard day”. However, he added: “But I'm still not catching Matthias. It's good to be on the podium, but he got to jump ahead and we need to start reining him in. We'd like to be winning every race, but that's unrealistic. I'm pretty happy that we got a result here. It took four races to get a podium.”

Due to the weather conditions, the weekend’s Challenger Cup competition was cancelled. The Challenger Cup competition is made up of pilots learning the ropes who hope to compete in the main Master Class.

After the highs and lows of Budapest, the Red Bull Air Race now moves to Ascot, England, for a weekend of high adrenalin racing on 13-14 August 2016.

www.redbullairrace.com