New Schedule, New Format, New Pilots for the Red Bull Air Race 2009

The Red Bull Air Race will begin 2009 in the traditional manner by starting off in Abu Dhabi.

However, absent from the schedule is London, Rotterdam, and Perth. There will only be six stops for the Air Race and they are as follows:

17/18 April: Abu Dhabi (UAE):
9/10 May: San Diego (USA):
13/14 June: Windsor, Ontario (Canada)
19/20 August: Budapest (Hungary)
12/13 September: Porto (Portugal)
3/4 October: Barcelona (Spain)

There are two new stops in here: Windsor and Barcelona. Windsor is located on the border between Canada and the US with Detroit being on the other side. Last year it was Detroit/Windsor hosting the Air Race, this year it is Windsor/Detroit. Barcelona is new again this year but not alien to the Red Bull Air Race. They last hosted an Air Race in 2006.

With four rookies - Pete McLeod from Canada, Yoshihide Muroya from Japan, Matt Hall from Australia and Matthias Dolderer from Germany—and 15 pilots total, there will be a slight format change: The qualifying session on the first day will involve two runs with the net winner of the qualifying being awarded one point. The top 10 will advance forward.

On the second day, we will start off with the wild card round. This is a new addition to the Red Bull Air Race where we'll have the bottom five start out by racing for the top two positions and a chance to join the top 10. From here, the top 12 will race for a place in the Super Eights.

The 11th place pilot will receive one point while the 12th place pilot will receive nothing. Positions 9-12 will have their places cemented while the top eight will take part in the Super Eights round.

Like the previous season, the Super Eights will have the eighth slowest qualifier go first for one flight around the track and move up from there.

Once the Super Eights are done, the top four positions will take part in a flyoff. Unlike the 2008 format where the fastest will go against the fourth fastest while the second place man will go against the third place man, the top four will fly one last time with the fastest time winning the race.

It's a big change from 2008, and it does give a chance for the new pilots to shake up the old order.

The final scoring will go as such:

1st = 12 points

2nd = 10 points

3rd = 9 points

4th = 8 points

5th = 7 points

6th = 6 points

7th = 5 points

8th = 4 points

9th = 3 points

10th = 2 points

11th = 1 point

12th-15th = 0 points

The winning pilot can make a grand total of 13 points in a race if he can be the fastest in qualifying as well.

This is going to be one interesting season with more unpredictability than the previous season. As they say in Air Racing: Smoke on!