Australian Aviation - July 2018

20 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

T

he Red Bull Air Race season

may only be eight races long, but

when you’re based in Australia

it’s almost like a constantly

rolling beast that leaves little time to

stop and re-group from one event to

the next, such is the travel involved.

But finding time to recap how our

last two races have gone – back-to-

back wins in France and then Japan

• plus looking at what comes next
  in the season is something our team
  prioritises. There’s a whole discussion
  there, but in this column, I want to
  talk about our race in Chiba, Japan. It
  was our second win for 2018 and the
  second time we have managed back-
  to-back air race wins.
  The first time was in 2016 when
  we won in Ascot, England and then
  Lausitz, Germany. We finished second
  in the world championship that year.
  One question that has been asked
  of me, is whether or not the win in
  Japan was easier after winning in
  Cannes and knowing we had the
  ability to win?
  Simply put, not really.
  This year, there are at least five
  other teams out there with the ability
  to win a race in their own right
  (meaning, not relying on luck to get
  through a round, or other people to
  penalise themselves out). So, that on
  its own always puts pressure on us
  during race day, knowing we have
  some pretty stiff competition.
  When your opponents are that fast,

the last thing you should do is afford

them an advantage. So, let’s wind back

the clock on Japan and discuss how

qualifying on the Saturday put us in a

tough position and made Sunday’s job

even harder.

The leadup to qualifying began

on the Friday of the race weekend.

Unusually we had four flights that

day, three test flights and practice

session one. All went well, and we

learnt a lot from the day and felt we

could improve on what were already

respectable times.

Saturday rolled around, and we

were scheduled for another two

practice sessions in the track, followed

by qualifying in the afternoon.

Realistically, it was another big day

with an extra flying session to what we

normally have.

As this day progressed, we knew

there would be a big change in the

winds but were also aware that come

race day on the Sunday, this wind

would return to what we had seen on

Friday, when we were fast. Therefore,

we made a conscious decision in

qualifying not to change our race line

due to the wind.

The reasoning for that was so that

I did not change and confuse my

thought processes or lessons already

learnt. I still believe this was a sound

decision.

Saturday practice went well,

including topping the leaderboard on

one of the sessions – all was looking

good for qualifying. But then it all

went horribly wrong when we got to

the first really important session of the

weekend.

My first run through the track in

qualifying felt like it was a rock-solid

run, up around my best times for the

track. As I pulled out of the track,

race director Jimmy DiMatteo read

my time to me, and I was two seconds

off the pace. Two seconds! That’s a

lifetime in the Red Bull Air Race and

handed a massive advantage to our

competitors.

The news was quite a shock to me,

as normally my estimates of the time

are pretty good, within half a second.

It also had me ranked third last! As

I reset for the second qualifying run,

I was running through everything

in my head as to what went wrong.

Did I lean incorrectly? Did I mess up

the power and prop setting? Did I

completely get my start speed wrong?

Was the engine losing power?

The bottom line was, I felt I flew

well and all I could do at that stage

was to try and fly well again and see

what happened.

That next run felt just as good, but

no better than the first. The problem

now was that I clipped a pylon, and

I knew straight away my chances of

improving my ranking were gone.

Pylon hits are worth a three-second

penalty. Despite the mistake, I stayed

in the track to get the best raw time I

could, knowing we needed to collect

data on what was going on.

As I pulled out of the track, the raw

time was back to what I had expected.

It was fast and would have put us

second behind qualifying winner Mike

Goulian – who was leading the world

championship by three points, ahead

of me.

The three-second pylon penalty

meant I ended up 12th, third last,

while our closest competitors sat near

the top of the tree. Bugger!

After I landed we had a quick team

debrief. I went through my thoughts

on what had happened, though

admitted I had no idea on what went

wrong on the first run. All I could do

at that stage was hand over to Pete

(tactician Peter Wezenbeek) and

Finchy (technician David Finch) to see

if they could find a valid reason for the

initial slow time.

A RACER’S EDGE

MATT HALL

Back-to-back

Was it easy or was it hard?

In action over Chiba.JOERG MITTER/

RED BULL CONTENT POOL

‘Two

seconds!

That’s a

lifetime in the

Red Bull Air

Race.’