About 90,000 Red Bull Air Race fans went wild in Chiba, Japan, on June 3-4 as Yoshihide Muroya prevailed in showdown after showdown to capture a repeat home win, as well as his second victory of the season.
After close calls in the opening Race Day rounds, Muroya’s Final 4 time of 55.288 was a convincing 0.558 of a second ahead of the Czech Republic’s Petr Kopfstein, who earned his career-first podium in only his second World Championship season. Another Czech, Martin Šonka, earned third for his second podium of 2017.
The result escalated the drama of an already thrilling season as Muroya edged ahead of Šonka in the standings to take the top of the overall leaderboard for the first time in his career, with two race wins to one triumph for the Czech pilot.
However, they’re tied in the points at 30 each as the eight-race World Championship heads toward its midpoint with the fourth stop in Budapest, Hungary on July 1-2.
They’re far from alone in the hunt for the title: Defending World Champion Matthias Dolderer of Germany, who was also in the Chiba Final 4, is just seven points back at third in the rankings, with Kopfstein six points behind him, and a large group of other pilots clustered tightly in the middle. For many, Budapest will be make-or-break.
“We are really happy to win again in Chiba, and I want to thank everybody here in Japan for their support. I had some luck, but in the end some of the other pilots made mistakes,” said Muroya, whose previous 2017 win was at the April stop in San Diego, USA. “We have another five races, so we need to continue as we are doing. Our team setup is quite good, and we must stick with the same tactics, stay with the plan and go forward as normal to win more races.”
Results Master Class Chiba 2017
- Yoshihide Muroya (JPN)
- Petr Kopfstein (CZE)
- Martin Šonka (CZE)
- Matthias Dolderer (GER)
- Michael Goulian (USA)
- Matt Hall (AUS)
- Pete McLeod (CAN)
- Kirby Chambliss (USA)
- Mikaël Brageot (FRA)
- Juan Velarde (ESP)
- François Le Vot (FRA),
- Peter Podlunšek (SLO)
- Nicolas Ivanoff (FRA)
- Cristian Bolton (CHI)
World Championship standings after three races
- Yoshihide Muroya (JPN) 30 pts,
- Martin Šonka (CZE) 30 pts
- Matthias Dolderer (GER) 23 pts
- Petr Kopfstein (CZE) 17 pts
- Pete McLeod (CAN) 14 pts
- Michael Goulian (USA) 14 pts
- Juan Velarde (ESP) 13 pts
- Peter Podlunšek (SLO) 12 pts
- Kirby Chambliss (USA) 10 pts
- Nicolas Ivanoff (FRA) 10 pts
- Matt Hall (AUS) 8 pts
- Cristian Bolton (CHI) 4 pts
- Mikaël Brageot (FRA) 4 pts
- François Le Vot (FRA) 3 pts