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By Daniel Baxter |
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May 9, 2010 -
Hannes Arch of Austria came from behind to beat Nigel Lamb of
Arch, who was in second place behind Lamb after the first of two Qualifying runs ahead of Sunday’s race, opened the throttle on his second run under brilliant blue skies and tropical temperatures. Although afternoon sea breezes were slowing down most of the pilots, the Austrian managed to shave nearly a second off his earlier time to deny Lamb the one point awarded to the fastest qualifier. |
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Arch stopped
the clock in 1:20.44, 0.73 ahead of Lamb and 1.18 ahead of Bonhomme.
The defending champion, Bonhomme, still leads the championship with
22 points with Lamb (18) in second and Arch (15) alone in third.
An even bigger
crowd of up to one million is expected for the race on Sunday. There was
a crowd of one million at the first race here in 2007.
“I enjoyed that,”
said Lamb, who is off to the best year of his career with 18 points from
the first two races. “I love the set up of the aircraft and just loved
being on the track today. Of course I’m disappointed not to get the
championship point. But it was a very positive day.”
Australia’s Matt
Hall took a promising fourth place in Qualifying, just 1.54 behind Arch,
while American Kirby Chambliss (5th), Frenchman Nicolas Ivanoff (6th),
Canada’s Pete McLeod (7th) and American Michael Goulian (8th) were all
within striking range of a podium on Sunday with less than 3.5 seconds
separating the leaders. The enormous home crowd cheered heartily for
Michael Goulian, who was flying in Brazilian colours after signing a
sponsorship agreement with Brazilian energy company Petrobras. |
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