Abu Dhabi: Florian Bergér of Germany putting behind all his earlier struggles in the week and came up with an exceptional performance to claim the top spot with a time of 57.073 seconds in the Challenger Class of the Red Bull Air Race at the Corniche track yesterday.
Sweden’s Daniel Ryfa, looking for his hat-trick in the capital, gave Bergér hot pursuit and was quicker in the early stages but at the penultimate gate ended up clipping a pylon and was penalised. That penalty gave him a final time of 59.420s and saw him drop to fifth.
Poland’s Luke Czepiela came closest to Berger, but he was still 1.460s slower than the German pilot and had to settle for the second spot. The third podium spot went to Kevin Coleman of United States. Italian Dario Costa, making his debut, flew cleanly and crossed the finish Gate in 59.418s to claim the fourth place. Another debutant Patrick Davidson, the first pilot from South Africa to fly in the challenger class, got a two second penalty and clocked a time of 1:00.544 to finish sixth.
