The Air Race Conditions Were Far Less Than Perfect, But The Race Still Took Place

Sometimes you just can’t catch a break, and such was the case for the Red Bull Air Race held last weekend in Budapest, Hungary. However, it was decided that safety could be maintained despite the bad weather conditions in this beautiful city, and the race was on.

Things started turning sour when poor weather conditions, including rain and low clouds, forced the Race Committee to cancel all race operations for Saturday’s opening of the ninth Red Bull Air Race in Budapest, Hungary, including Masters Qualifying. Race Director Jim DiMatteo said, “Safety for the Red Bull Air Race is of the utmost priority.” But, despite the lack of Saturday’s qualifying runs, Red Bull Race rules make allowance for such situations.

According to the Red Bull website, despite the weather, the Budapest race had it all, high action, a technical track and testing weather conditions. These components helped produce a thrilling race in Budapest, and Matthias Dolderer came out on top in a race that will last long in the memory of fans of the ultimate motorsport series in the sky.

In a race that was cut short due to weather conditions Matthias Dolderer took his second win of the season and extended his lead in the World Championship to 15 points. Here’s what the top four racers had to say about the race conditions, according to Red Bull Air Race:

1st Matthias Dolderer
"It was a crazy weekend, and after the first flight today I thought this would be a bad weekend, but it went really well in the second flight. I'm overall 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."

2nd Hannes Arch
"I think Budapest likes me, and I like Budapest. 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. Matthias did a great job; anybody that flew a 58s lap flew a good race. The conditions were very gusty out there, but nevertheless I'm happy with my performance, the performance of the team and the raceplane set up – we got the maximum out of it."

3rd Matt Hall
"It was a hard week, a hard day and it worked out okay. 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, but when you look back we knew we could've got there, but for the championship it depends if Matthias keeps winning races."

4th Kirby Chambliss
"It wasn't too bad, I was close to the podium and we're always shooting for that first spot. Matthias yanked it out of there again and that's really going to put him up there. I was happy with my flying and I wish I had been able to squeak a little bit more out of there, but it is what it is. We're really pushing hard for the championship, we're continuing to work on the raceplane and making improvements so we'll see where we end up."

The next race will be on August 13-14 at the Ascot race track in the UK.

(Image from file)

FMI: Red Bull Air Race