Thrills, Spills, and Surprises As Bonhomme Takes Third Win

Well, what a weekend in Rotterdam! It was quite possibly the most entertaining of all the races so far with weather playing a big factor in the setups of the pilots.

As a result, the final tally was slightly different than what was predicted, but the winner was the electric Englishman, Paul Bonhomme. In second was the Austrian Hannes Arch, who took two ten-second penalties for hitting two air gates in the first-place flyoff and having trouble, thus disqualifying himself from the run.

The other Englishman, Steve Jones, finally had some luck come his way to round off the top three after beating Kirby Chambliss by 0.03 seconds in the third place flyoff.

Further down the order, the two top flying Americans in Kirby Chambliss and Mike Mangold came fourth and fifth, respectively. Peter Besenyei, Michael Goulian, Nigel Lamb, and Sergey Rakhmanin took the points paying position, with Rakhmanin getting his first ever points finish after taking first place in the super eights.

Alejandro Maclean, Nicolas Ivanoff and Glen Dell came in 10th, 11th and 12th place.

When it came to equipment, the Edge 540 aircraft dominated the top five positions while the MXS is starting to make headway. Nigel Lamb was the only MXS pilot to make it into the top eight with a seventh place finish.

As mentioned earlier, weather played a big role on qualifying and race day, with the final qualifying run on Saturday having to be cancelled because of high winds.

With this result, Paul Bonhomme remains in first place with 35 points while Hannes Arch has cemented his second place with 29 points due to poor showings from Mike Mangold and Kirby Chambliss. Only six points divide first and second place, and the season is young!

Thousands of spectators lined the River Maas to watch some high flying action and from the looks of it, it was a sight to behold.

In a fortnight, the air race lands in London, taking place on the River Thames, and I'm sure that nothing would be more sweet than having Paul Bonhomme make it to the top step on his home turf.

See you in two weeks!

Photography Credit: Balazs Gardi, 2008