Red Bull Air Race: Lamb roasts rival pilots in 1st win

It was a victory that was 44 races in the making.

But having waited almost seven years for his first win, Nigel Lamb could be forgiven for pinching himself after finally getting a taste of Red Bull Air Race success in Putrajaya yesterday.

"I was really taken by surprise," the 57-year-old Briton admitted after he pipped pre-race favourite Hannes Arch of Austria to victory by half a second.

"We had a really tough start to the season so this weekend has been an amazing high for the team and me."

On the back of a disappointing eighth-placed finish last time out in Rovinj, Croatia, few would have given Lamb much chance against Arch, who landed in Malaysia tied with Paul Bonhomme for the championship lead.

And the Austrian continued his fine form with a dominant outing in Saturday qualifying, navigating the aerial racetrack seven-tenths of a second ahead of closest rival Pete McLeod.

"I'm quite happy with my performance all week long," Arch, 46, said of the Air Race's maiden visit to Malaysia.

"We learnt quite quickly how to be fast on this track so my aim was to go to the limit."

But while Arch now holds a five-point lead in the championship hunt, it was Lamb who found that little bit extra when it came down to the final four.

"The race format makes for a situation where you really have to go for it," he said of the three-round system that whittles the field down from 12 to eight and, finally, the quickest quartet.

"It's a fine line between risking too much and not risking enough but I left a little bit in the tank for the final, took a little bit more risk and it paid off."

Lamb was not the only one who had a weekend to remember at Putrajaya Lake, though.

Business development executive Chen Shichang won a pair of Grandstand tickets through a contest jointly organised by Red Bull Singapore and The Straits Times and thoroughly enjoyed his first taste of the Air Race.

"I used to watch it on television but the experience of watching it live was very different," said the motor sports enthusiast, who has volunteered as a marshal at three editions of the Formula One Singapore Grand Prix.

"From getting a full view of the racetrack and the planes manoeuvring around the obstacles to the sound of the planes flying past, it was a truly memorable experience."

Sky is no limit for an air racer

PUTRAJAYA - He was never that wide-eyed boy looking up at the sky, mesmerised by the wonder of flight. In fact, Pete McLeod does not even remember learning how to fly an aeroplane.

But then again, he was just three when it happened.

"Flying is in my blood," said the Canadian who, at 30, is the youngest pilot in the Red Bull Air Race hangar. "For me, it was like learning to read or walk."

McLeod was speaking to The Straits Times at last weekend's competition in Putrajaya, where he finished fourth after being disqualified for exceeding the 200-knot start speed limit in the final-four shootout.

A new addition to the series, the Malaysia event is the third of eight legs in this year's championship, which is back after a three-year hiatus and sees pilots navigating an aerial racetrack in the fastest possible time.

While his weekend ended in disappointment, McLeod's championship standing underscores how far this small-town boy from Red Lake, Ontario has come.

Growing up in the remote gold-mining town - so remote, he said, that the nearest McDonald's was 2½ hours away - he was just six weeks old at the time of his first flight.

"My dad had a small float plane that he used to fly people to remote lakes for fishing so I grew up flying with him," he recalled. "I ended up getting my pilot's licence when I was 16 - a year before I could get my driver's licence. They sure have some weird laws in Canada!"

It was around this time that the ice-hockey enthusiast became hooked on aerobatics and decided that his future lay away from commercial flying.

"I always wanted flying to be fun and aerobatics is like that," he remarked. "It's not about some fancy computer system, it's just you and the plane. That's the type of flying I did growing up - very dynamic."

But he still had plenty to prove when he became the Air Race's youngest-ever pilot in 2009.

"I've always been the youngest guy throughout my flying career but here it's under a magnifying glass," said McLeod, six years younger than Czech pilot Martin Sonka - the next-youngest member of the 12-man hangar.

"Initially, I had to prove not that I had the skill but that I had the mindset, the responsibility and the maturity to be here.

"But once I did that and the rest of the guys realised that I wasn't going to do something stupid, I could focus on the racing." Indeed, he now views the youth that once counted against him as an advantage in a sport where the average age of the rest of the field is 47.

Among them are double world champion Paul Bonhomme and yesterday's runner-up Hannes Arch - both of whom McLeod believes he can learn from.

The economics graduate from the University of Western Ontario is not about to start taking time for granted.

"The clock is always ticking in life, as it does on the racetrack," McLeod pointed out. "If I sit back and go 'I've come far enough', that clock will keep going and then I'll suddenly be 40, not 30.

"My youth is an advantage but it's not permanent so I have to make the most of it."

fabiusc@sph.com.sg

This article was published on May 19 in The Straits Times.

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