• This weekend's race will be held over the infield of the famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway. (Pedrag Vuckovic / Red Bull Content Pool)
    This weekend's race will be held over the infield of the famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway. (Pedrag Vuckovic / Red Bull Content Pool)
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This weekend's seventh round of the Red Bull Air Race World Championship at Indianapolis is a fork in the road for Australian pilot Matt Hall.

Sitting second in the world championship only six points behind Czech pilot Martin Sonka, Hall knows that a poor showing at the track built inside the famous motor racing circuit would put him out of contention for the 2018 title. Sonka, Hall and the USA's Michael Goulian are the only pilots with a realistic chance of winning the championship.

Despite the pressure, Hall says he won't be doing anything different other than trying to put in his best performance.

“My mental approach is unchanged for this race from what it has been at any other race, even though we are at crunch time” Hall said.

“It just means that it is more critical than ever that I fly error-free. You always want to achieve the best result possible, but sometimes if you have a poor result in the mid-season you can shrug your shoulders because there is time to catch up.

“We can’t do that this race; a bad result in Indy could be championship ending, but that does not change our approach.”

Hall, in his seventh RBAR season, has been knocking on the door of the title several times and has finished runner-up twice: to Briton Paul Bonhomme in 2015 and Germany's Matthias Dolderer in 2016.

The Aussie remains confident and believes the support of his team will give him the impetus to still be in the title fight at the last round in Forth Worth in November.

"I am feeling confident in my team," he said. "They know what they are doing, and the plane is performing really well. Last year we won qualifying here in a race plane that wasn’t as modified as it is now, with a team that wasn’t as polished as we are now.

“I am flying well, we have a few minor tweaks to improve the plane again this race, and I think we can go faster than last year.”

This weekend’s Red Bull Air Race is the seventh of eight 2018. It will begin with qualifying at 7.00 am AEDT on Sunday 7 October (4.00 pm on Saturday local time) with the race starting at 4.00 am AEDT on Monday.

Qualifying and the race will be shown live online at www.redbullairrace.com/live and around Australia on Fox Sports channel 503.

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