28 October 2014
Nicolas Ivanoff took his second victory of the 2014 season to jump up to a career-best fourth place overall in the Red Bull Air Race World Championship standings.
Ivanoff beat Nigel Lamb of Britain, Martin Sonka of the Czech Republic and Austria’s Hannes Arch in a challenging track in the Austrian Alps in front of 35,000 spectators. With the win in Spielberg and the 12 points earned, Ivanoff leapfrogged over Matt Hall of Australia and Pete McLeod of Canada from sixth to fourth.
“I’m pleased with the victory and the way the season went,” said Ivanoff. “We tried to make the plane faster with some modifications before this race but they didn’t work. So we removed them in the last few days. Obviously it worked so I’m quite happy.”
Ivanoff’s win meant that Nigel Lamb took his first ever World Champion title. At first, it seemed that Lamb had slipped out of contention for the race win in the face of a dominating Hannes Arch. But as the Austrian took to the racetrack, the split times consistently hit the red and a penalty brought all hopes for another World Champion title crashing down for Arch, leaving a stunned but rapturous Lamb to celebrate his first ever title win.
Paul Bonhomme finished in fifth place in Spielberg, but remains positive about the races next year. “Of course we’re disappointed but actually, right now, I’m a little bit bemused how I lost a second in that second run. But that’s sport; you win some and you lose some. We were doing very well up until about half way through this year then we sort of petered off, but we’re looking forward to next year. We’ve had lots of highs and lows this season; Ascot has got to be the highlight for us. The lows are probably all the fifth places; it feels like we’ve come fifth every race! But overall, we’re chuffed to be back and we were in contention for the championship so it wasn’t that bad.”
Hear more from Paul in the December issue of FLYER magazine, where he shares his thoughts on the Las Vegas race exclusively with FLYER readers.
