Austrian Hannes Arch scored his second straight win in the Red Bull Air Race (RBAR) round in Budapest yesterday.
Arch clocked a time of 0:59.350 to edge out series leader Paul Bonhomme and Czech Martin Sonka. Pete McLeod from Canada rounded out the final four.
"Budapest is a great race," Arch said. "I've now won here twice and it was where I won my first ever Red Bull Air Race.
"I'm already looking forward to coming back."
Competitors start by flying underneath the iconic Szechenyi Chain Bridge then into the track along the Danube River. It's a very popular track with pilots and, along with Zeltweg in Austria, is considered the birthplace of the RBAR.
Local hero and "Grandfather" of the RBAR Peter Besenyei put in a good performance flying a new aeroplane. He was eliminated in the Round of 8 by McLeod, having dispatched American Kirby Chambliss in the Round of 14.
Australian Matt Hall finished a disappointing fifth after being virtually untouchable in training, qualifying and the Round of 14. First in both training and qualifying, his Round of 14 time of 0:58.4 was nearly three seconds faster than his nearest rival.
It took a blistering run of 0:59.701 by opponent Martin Sonka to lay down a challenge to the Australian. Hall's reply of 0:59.884 was not enough.
Hall was at a loss to explain how he managed a run nearly 1.5 seconds slower than his previous time.
“I don’t know what happened out there, I thought it was a good run,” he said.
“We will have to go away and analyse the data and see where things went wrong. You never expect to win but I did expect to fly as fast as I had in the earlier round. I thought that would be good enough.”
Despite finishing outside the Final 4 for the first time this season, Hall said there were plenty of positives to take from the week.
“We were dominant all week until halfway through today.
“I can leave here knowing that I had one bad run and it was just at the wrong time. I can take lots of confidence from the fact I was able to maintain consistently good form over a number of days.
“We will look at what happened at the end and learn and improve."
Hall's next shot at a race win comes at Ascot in the UK 15-16 August.