Red Bull Air Race: The Sophomore's Amazing Performance!

This year, a surprise in the Red Bull Air Race comes in the form of a sophomore named Hannes Arch. Why is he a surprise? If you look at last year's results, Arch was only able to score points on one occasion, a fourth place in the second event in Brazil. With that, he took only three points the entire year and was in tenth place out of 13 in the final standings.

However, this year, Arch has been a consistent scorer of points in the past three events with two podium places, a second in Abu Dhabi and a third in Detroit. He hasn't changed his aircraft, it has remained as the Edge 540 that he had last year.

So, what is his secret? When I asked him in Detroit, he told me "I have no secret... everything is... clear for me. First year was my rookie year, and it was about observing and learning. Once I did my learning, I tried to improve in the winter time. I have (also) improved in terms of the team who are supporting me and giving me the freedom to focus on air racing and also improve with my aircraft and make the right modifications and I think that the aircraft, me and my team help make us go faster."

If you look at his style this year vs. last year, Hannes' flying has been more stable this year than last. His concentration of the track shows it and he seems to be more in control. Rookie errors seem to be a thing of the past for him, but he is certainly not immune to them, as was seen in Abu Dhabi after he took three 3-second penalties in his final run against Paul Bonhomme.

As well, his mentor last year was Mike Mangold, the 2007 champion. This year, he's giving his old mentor a run for his money.

"Hannes is doing a really nice job" said Mike Mangold after finishing behind his mentee in Abu Dhabi, "we let him look too much at our technology."

If the current trend continues, I think we can see Arch challenging for the championship soon. It's not a matter of if Hannes can win anymore, it's a matter of when he will win both a race and a championship.

See you in Rotterdam!