Cannes do

Our new technician Dave ‘Finchy’ Finch was already in Germany working on it all when I arrived. He had left Australia two weeks prior and travelled via New York, where he completed his A&P licence. Peter Wezenbeek our tactician, was meeting me in Bruchsal so we could assess how the handling and performance was going too.

Andrew Musgrove our team coordinator was not going to be joining us until we arrived in Cannes a week later. Things were a little in the air, so to speak, as I departed.

On arrival in Bruchsal we found the plane was a little lighter, the wing was smooth – a crucial element to amending our paint job – and the CoG was back where we wanted it. We put the plane together and did some more maintenance, then when we were set to fly, rain set in and we had to wait a little longer to find out the results of our work.

When I finally got airborne, I knew we were onto something good.

The handling was back to how I wanted it, and the plane was definitely a few knots faster than when we left the Abu Dhabi race two months earlier. I knew this even though we had to make a few ‘educated guesses’ in training and testing because we weren’t allowed fly at sea level, like we do in racing, and must fly at a higher altitude.

It’s fair to say that when I left Bruchsal with the aircraft for the 1.5 hour flight south, around the Alps to France (thanks OzRunways for the maps, they still work perfectly in Europe), we were feeling pretty good as a team.

We then spent the next 24 hours or so getting the race equipment back in the aircraft, and we had a few more test flights. Once we entered the track for the first time during the race week, we were feeling good. There may not have been any quantum leap against the other teams that we are always battling, but at that stage we weren’t pushing as hard as we could

I was becoming familiar with a new set up and the faster charging would come later in the weekend.

The night before qualifying day the team and my family took some time out and enjoyed the fact we were sitting on the edge of the Mediterranean, eating pizza, and waiting to race planes on the weekend. It was a bit of a perspective check and reduced the pressure on us. At that point we could acknowledge that we had completed everything we could with the aircraft.

The time had come for us to just do what we came to do, in an awesome location. Game on.

Based on the practice results in Cannes, we went into the qualifying session thinking that Japan’s Yoshi Muroya and Spaniard Juan Velarde would be the guys to beat. But in early in qualifying Germany’s Matthias Dolderer recorded an absolute blinder of a run. The team later told me that it looked unbeatable.

When I walked out of the hangar for my flight, I was unaware of Matthias’ run and any other times flown ahead of me.

So I followed my pre-race procedure and went out to put my time down – which was a low 57-second run. It was a time that I thought was well ahead of the rest, unaware of what had happened before me. When I landed and discovered I was only just ahead of Matthias, I was a little shocked he had managed to go so fast, he hadn’t flown a fast time all week!

Despite this, I was comfortable that my time was probably good enough to win qualifying.

Next up was Martin Šonka and he had a double DQ (only flew one quali and over G’ed to be sent home), so he was ranked second last, ahead of Ben Murphy who had done the same. I remained comfortable as at that point, if I were to stay top of the standings my Round of 14 opponent the next day would be Ben. He’s got talent, but was only in his second race and I knew he would be conservative after an Over-G.

Things were looking up, and it was only qualifying day.

Then came America’s Kirby Chambliss and he turned up! He beat my track record by sixth thousandths of a second and all of a sudden, my Round of 14 match up was no longer Ben, but 2016 series runner up Šonka. Our only way to avoid a first round showdown with a fast and consistent pilot like Martin was for Yoshi to come out next and beat Kirby…but a penalty stopped that from happening.

It might seem odd that in a column about winning a Red Bull Air Race, the majority of the discussion has been the qualifying session. However, that afternoon was electric, and it played a big hand in setting up a successful Sunday for our team.

My only hope of avoiding Martin first up on race day now lay on the shoulders of Michael Goulian. The championship leader, the last to fly in qualifying and another guy who had not posted a good time all week. Things, were not looking up…even though 15 minutes earlier, I had broken the (then) lap record.

I had just about given up; our Sunday was shaping up to be a tough slog. Even so, I watched Mike fly and I was cheering him on. And then and he won and we weren’t racing Martin first up the next day. Call it fate, call it luck, all I know is that we were cheering.

As it turned out, so was Team Šonka. They were also cheering on Mike as Martin did not want to race me either!

Race day dawned beautifully. I had my normal pre-race nerves, so knew I was in the right frame of mind. Embrace the nerves my sports psych says, they are given to only those who push themselves to be better. So, I did.

‘Embrace the nerves, they are given to only those who push themselves to be better.’

After the nail biting qualifying session yesterday, it turned out my first opponent in the race was Frenchman Francois Le Vot. He put down a time that I knew I could beat, so I flew a conservative run to make sure there were no mistakes.

That put me into the second stage of the race, the Round of 8 and a duel with Pete McLeod of Canada and I would fly first. There are two schools of thought on flying first. One says you don’t get the advantage of knowing how fast the other pilot flies. The other is that you have the advantage of no pressure, you can just go for it.

The latter is the view I took. I put down a pretty quick time, and it was enough to put pressure on Pete, who then made a mistake. That put me into the Final 4.

As I waited on the start grid with my team for my start time in the Final 4, we had a quick discussion about how hard I should push. In the past in the first half of the season we wouldn’t take risks in the Final 4, we would just be happy to take a podium rather than try to win and end up fourth.

But with Mike, Matthias and Yoshi as my opponents, we also knew that the difference between first and fourth would likely be fractions of a second. Therefore, the decision was obvious, I had to push for a win.

My time was good, though I was not over the moon with it and didn’t think it would be the race winner. But by the time I landed Yoshi had already flown and I was met by the team to the news that I had beaten him and was guaranteed a podium.

Next was Matthias and he was within metres of my ghost plane. We held our breath as he raced to the finish, but ultimately finished behind us. Mike flew last, and as soon as he was more than 0.1 of a second behind my time on his run, I was pretty confident we had the win.

When he crossed his time went red, showing it to be slower than mine. There was a distinct sense of relief for me. We had done it. Finally, we won with the Edge, and after more than 500 days I had grabbed my fifth career win.