Bonhomme stops Arch rival in Red Bull Air Race final

Abu Dhabi: Paul Bonhomme capped a brilliant weekend in the capital with a resounding victory over surprise finalist Hannes Arch and get off to a perfect start in the 2008 Red Bull Air Race Series.

It was virtually a one-man show as last year's Series runner-up Bonhomme never allowed anyone of the 11 other pilots to come close and it was nine points to the Briton while the rest of the field will have to seriously wonder how to tackle the consistent performer in the season ahead.

After the former RBAR Series champions Mike Mangold (2005 and 2007) and Kirby Chambliss failed to make it to the final showdown, it was a battle between last year's runner-up and last year's rookie.

But Bonhomme's consistency was near flawless which left Arch way off target in the final but the Austrian, with less than a week in his new air plane, did make a huge impact.

In his new Edge 540, Bonhomme showed why he was on the podium in 9 of last year's 10 races when he beat Arch by more than 7.05 seconds in the final!

Earlier, the day's action started off with the ‘cellar battle' by the last four for the solitary point. American Michael Goulian, who flunked both rounds on Thursday along with debutant Glen Dell of South Africa, Frenchman Nicolas Ivanoff and ‘King of Penalties' Sergey Rakhmanin of Russia battled for the lone point and a 9th place finish.

Ivanoff, who won the last race of the 2007 RBAR Series in Perth, salvaged some pride by gaining 9th place to kick-start the points tally for 2008.

Then came the Super Eights battle in which the top half was to move into the head-to-head semifinals. While Paul Bonhomme was once again in awesome form to top the Super Eights, the surprise was Austrian Hannes Arch. After a year as rookie when he finished 10th last year, Arch was on target with a brilliant 1:04.56 which was third best and earned him a spot in the final four. That also meant the 2006 champion Kirby Chambliss had to be content with fifth place and five points. Kirby, who started the Super Eights as second best, was hit with a 3-second penalty which saw forced him out of the reckoning.

Alejandro Maclean, Steve Jones and Nigel Lamb finished 6th, 7th and 8th respectively to gain 4, 3 and 2 points respectively.

In the semifinals, Bonhomme was paired with last year's Abu Dhabi leg winner Besenyei while two-time RBAR Series champion Mangold was up against the fast-improving Arch.

While Bonhomme made no mistake in the semifinals to send the defending champion Besenyei out of the race the biggest shock came in the second semifinal. Arch came up with another superb round and clocked 1.04.10 to put the pressure on Mangold. But Mangold just could not better the rookie's timing and his defence of the RBAR Series title was grounded at take-off stage itself.

Final results of Abu Dhabi 2008 RBAR and Series points earned:

1. Paul Bonhomme -GBR – 1:03.31 (Final timing)-9 pts

2. Hannes Arch - AUT – 1:10.36 – 8 pts

3. Mike Mangold - USA – 7 pts

4. Peter Besenyei HUN – 6 pts

5. Kirby Chambliss -USA – 5 pts

6. Alejandro Maclean - ESP – 4 pts

7. Steve Jones - GBR – 3 pts

8. Nigel Lamb -GBR – 2 pts

9. Nicolas Ivanoff - FRA – 1 point

10. Sergey Rakhmanin -RUS - 0

11. Michael Goulian -USA -0

12. Glen Dell -RSA – 0.