Matt Hall has described the Dallas Fort Worth round of the Red Bull Air Race as disappointing after finishing sixth in an event he thought he could win.
The race was held over the Texas Motor Speedway 6-7 September, with Frenchman Nicholas Ivanov taking the win over Nigel Lamb and Pete McLeod.
Hall failed to make the final four.
"The race itself was actually one of my more disappointing results emotionally," he says on his website blog.
"We came in sixth in the end, which is a good mid field position, though I must admit, I thought there was a chance we could win this one. We had put seemingly everything in our favour. I was well rested having gone direct from London to Dallas to get over any jet lag, Eric had the aircraft flying nice and early, and I did a heap of training in it.
"When we got to the track, I felt very comfortable in Training Session 1, putting down the fastest time for the day. We then posted times in the top 4 on every flight, up until the last training session on Saturday, when I had quite a large pylon hit.
"I had underestimated a wind change, so was lining up the start finish gate on my first lap, and ended up running out of room and slid sideways into the pylon. While it was not dangerous, it was a little different to usual and a first for me, due to the pylon getting wrapped around the aileron spade arm. This put some large control loads through my control stick and I had to abort out of the track."
Hall lost confidence in the turn that produced the pylon strike, and believes that he concentrated too much on trying to repeat the incident in the race and not enough on winning.
Analysis showed the wider line he took added about a second to his time overall.
The next round of the Red Bull Air Race is in Las Vegas 11-12 October.
Matt Hall's race review is on the Matt Hall Racing website.