In his last attempt to win the Red Bull Air Race World Championship, Australian Matt Hall has elevated himself into third place on the ladder after a second-place finish behind Japan's Yoshi Muroya at Kazan, Russia, yesterday.
Muroya has now won both rounds in this shortened four-race season after his victory in Abu Dhabi in February.
Muroya was up against Hall, current World Champion Martin Sonka from the Czech Republic and Frenchman Francois Le Vot in the Final Four round. Flying first, the man from Japan laid down a 1:03.496, which was actually slower than he had managed in his Round of 8 win against Mika Brageot.
This seemingly opened the gate for Sonka, and although the time he posted was faster than his Round of 8 time, it was still 0.7 sec off Muroya. Le Vot was up next, but his all-or-nothing approach resulted in a nightmare run as he collected two penalties for incorrect level flying. That left only one pilot who could catch Muroya.
Racing last, Matt Hall was clean as fast through the course, but in the end missed the victory by only 0.185 sec. It was good enough for second place.
"The team is working really well," Muroya said after the race. "Everybody is working hard and I can be relaxed in the hangar, so I can just fly like a robot. The plane is really fast and I can simply do my job.
"Today we were so close together, and the points are still close in the standings, so I can’t relax for the next race. Of course I will go for the win in Lake Balaton.”
Hall's second place lifted him from fifth to third in the championship standings and put him back on the podium.
"It feels good," he said. "When you've had a roll on podiums and then you miss one, you kind of go ‘wow, what do I do?’ So it’s good to be back on. We were close to first and it was needed because my theory for that with this being a four race season you need to win two and podium one.
"So Yoshi has already won two, so I’ve got to win the next two to be World Champion.”
The weekend started with Hall on edge as he qualified only ninth, a disappointing result when he thought the lines and speed were enough for a higher slot. After studying the data and modifying some race lines, Hall posted the fastest time in the Round of 14, more than a second better than his qualifying time.
“Kazan has been a place I haven’t got a trophy from before, it’s good to say we have a trophy from most places in air race and after yesterday I was quite concerned about our ability to get on the podium today,” a relieved Hall said.
“We knew we could do it and we worked really hard overnight and this morning and got our times where we wanted them. We worked on my flying style, we knew the plane was good and we identified that there were some environmental issues which hindered us yesterday.
“This track has had the tendency to change conditions and affect times by a second or two with wind gusts and headwinds this weekend. Yesterday we were affected a little bit by that, and it was also a little bit about some of the lines we flew, and we addressed that too.”
Muroya is on top of the table with 53 points, followed by Sonka on 44 and Hall on 36.
The series now moves on to Lake Balaton in Hungary on 13-14 July.