29 July 2007
American pilot Mike Mangold has won the London leg of the Red Bull Air Race series. Flying low over the river Thames between Canary Wharf and the O2 dome Mangold beat local favourite Paul Bonhomme in the race final to take the spoils.
Hungarian Peter Besenyei took third place.
The result means that Bonhomme retains top spot in the series, but by a single point.
The race was watched by an estimated 35,000 people who lined the specially constructed stands on the riverside. There had been some concerns about the weather for race day – especially as last year’s event at Longleat had been cancelled due to weather – but it turned out to be fine for flying, with less wind than had been experienced for the whole of race weekend. This meant that some of the fastest times of the meeting were posted today.
Hopes of a British win took at blow when home pilots Steve Jones and Paul Bonhomme were drawn together in the quarter finals, and Nigel Lamb met his match in Spaniard Alejandro MacLean at the same stage of the competition.
For more information, and a blow-by-blow account of the day’s events, see the Red Bull panel of FLYER’s home page at <a href=”http://www.flyer.co.uk” target=”_blank”>www.flyer.co.uk/</a>
Also read <a href=”http://www.flyer.co.uk/news/redbull2.php”>our special riverside report</a> by Rod Simpson
