German pilot Matthias Dolderer has won the 2016 Red Bull Air Race Series Championship with one round to spare.
Dolderer won the Indianapolis round on the weekend, with the only person capable of catching him in the standings, Australia's Matt Hall finishing in fourth place. With only the Las Vegas round left, the win gave the German an unassailable 24.5 point lead.
"It's an amazing feeling and I haven't had time to realise what's happened," Dolderer said. "It's amazing, I'm going to go and kiss the yard of bricks because that's what the winners do here at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway."
Hall made it into the Final 4, but a pylon strike that cost him a three-second penalty put him out of contention for a result that would keep his championship hopes alive. Briton Nigel Lamb took second place with Canada's Pete McLeod finishing third.
Dolderer defeated Nicolas Ivanoff in the Round of 14 and Yoshi Moruya in the Round of 8; Hall meanwhile had to overcome Czech pair Peter Podlunsek and Martin Sonka in succession.
In the final, Dolderer eclipsed all others; even without the three-second penalty, Hall would not have finished first. His net time of 1:03.623 would have scraped him into second place, but Dolderer's blistering 1:03.335 was enough of a margin to ensure the championship anyway.
A disappointed Hall said he had given his title run everything, but his campaign had been dogged by injury, some uncharacteristic errors and, in the lead-up to Indianapolis, a gastro virus that landed him in hospital on an intravenous drip.
“This year just hasn’t been my year with a few things and I guess today was another sign of that,” he said.
“We gave it our all and as a team, we are going well. We have a fast plane and I know what is needed to perform well but I need to start looking after my body and get healthy again.
“We have one more race left in the season in Las Vegas and I am going to take a break with the family next week so hopefully I’ll arrive there a lot fresher and ready to go.
“We want to finish the year on a high note so we will have a quick break and focus on that.”
The final round of the series is in Las Vegas on 15-16 October.