| Bonhomme ready to roll in 2009 |
Paul Bonhomme was the master of the universe in the Red Bull Air Race last year – but only for the first half of the season.
He was full seconds ahead of the pack in Abu Dhabi, San Diego and Rotterdam in races normally decided by fractions of a second and the only blemish on a perfect record, during the first half of the season, was coming a close second to Kirby Chambliss in Detroit. Britain’s Boy Wonder looked depressingly unbeatable to the rest of the field at the midway point, opening up a huge 6-point lead. But two inexplicably sub-par races in London (7th) and Porto (10th) wiped out that commanding lead and dropped him back to 2nd place.
Even a thunderous victory in the final race in Perth was not enough to over-take Austria’s Hannes Arch, who won just 2 races last year but was the epitome of consistency with 7 podiums and nothing lower than one 4th place. Bonhomme is confident he can get back the consistency that was lacking last year. But does the man with more victories (7) than anyone else in the last 2 years with consecutive 2nd-place championship finishes feel like he is the favorite for 2009?
“No, but we’ve done all we can to make sure that we do well this year,” Bonhomme said. “I was the favorite after 4 races last year and then look what happened.”
He is still kicking himself about “my tactical mistake in London” –- where he hit a pylon while rather needlessly pressing hard for a top time in the Super Eights – and he is even more annoyed about being disqualified in the Qualifying round at Porto for briefly exceeding the 12-G limit: “I was very pissed off with the over-G ruling in Porto, a shame after such a good start to the season.”
Bonhomme, whose family grew in the off-season with the birth of his daughter on 12th February, also worked hard over the winter with his team to improve the Edge 540 that served him so well last year.
“There was actually no ‘off-season’ this year,” he said. “November and December were planning months and we got the plane back in January. Since then it’s been flat out with mods and tweaking as well as rigorous planning for 2009. The plane is coming along beautifully. We’ve been busy – I won’t say doing what – and I’m confident it’ll work really well.”
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