Matt Hall has reiterated his desire to secure a race win in the 2015 Red Bull Air Race series.
Talking with Red Bull Media yesterday, the Australian said he still believed his team was capable of putting their aircraft on the top step of the podium.
"You wouldn't be doing it if you didn't think you could win it," he said. "That's still an objective of ours. I still haven't won a race, I've come second and third, but I want to go and win a race, because until you win a race it's pretty hard to say that you can be a world champion."
Scoring a race win won't be easy for Hall, as the outstanding performers and a few break-out results of 2014 show there are plenty of other pilots harbouring similar ambitions in 2015.
"I think that the original favourites will still be up there, so if you look at the top three, they'll still be up there, but there were some really interesting results coming out of last year."
First-time race wins for Nicolas Ivanov and Nigel Lamb, as well as podium results for outsiders Martin Sonka and Yoshi Muroya showed the even nature of the field. Of the 12 pilots competing, only two failed to get into the Final Four at least once: American Mike Goulian and RBAR luminary Peter Besenyei.
Of all the results, it is perhaps that of Lamb, also flying an MXS with winglets, that caught Hall's attention the most. His own MXS was fitted with similar winglets over the off-season, and the team will get to evaluate them in genuine race conditions for the first time in Abu Dhabi this weekend.
"It's good to be back," Hall said about the opening round. "It's a great sport to be involved in. We've done a reasonable amount to the aircraft; one major item being the winglets ... we're yet to see how they affect the performance in the race track."
If Lamb's first race win and subsequent World Championship are indicative of what Hall can expect from his own plane in 2015, the ambition of a race win may be met before the year is out.