# 2010 Red Bull Air Race World Championship

The 2010 Red Bull Air Race World Championship was the eighth official Red Bull Air Race World Championship series. Paul Bonhomme became champion for the second successive year, finishing each of the six rounds of the championship in the top three placings, two of which were victories. Hannes Arch was the only other round winner, taking four victories but finished four points behind Bonhomme, after an eleventh-place finish in the season-opener in the United Arab Emirates. Nigel Lamb finished third with three runner-up placings, and three fourth places.
At the end of the season, Red Bull Air Race GmbH announced that the series would take a one-year break in 2011, to reorganize and strengthen development and commercial aspects of the series.

## Aircraft and pilots

| No. | Pilot | Aircraft | Rounds Contested |
| 4 | Kirby Chambliss | Edge 540 | All |
| 5 | Péter Besenyei | MX Aircraft MXS-R | All |
| 7 | Adilson Kindlemann | MX Aircraft MXS-R | 1 |
| 8 | Martin Šonka | Edge 540 | All |
| 9 | Nigel Lamb | MX Aircraft MXS-R | All |
| 18 | Sergey Rakhmanin | MX Aircraft MXS-R | All |
| 21 | Matthias Dolderer | Edge 540 | All |
| 27 | Nicolas Ivanoff | Edge 540 | All |
| 28 | Hannes Arch | Edge 540 | All |
| 31 | Yoshihide Muroya | Edge 540 | 1–4, 6 |
| 36 | Alejandro Maclean | MX Aircraft MXS-R | All |
| 55 | Paul Bonhomme | Edge 540 | All |
| 84 | Pete McLeod | Edge 540 | All |
| 95 | Matt Hall | MX Aircraft MXS-R | 1–4, 6 |
| 99 | Michael Goulian | Edge 540 | All |

### New pilots

Two new pilots joined the Red Bull Air Race Series for 2010 season as Mike Mangold and Glen Dell left the series. They were Martin Šonka from the Czech Republic and Adilson Kindlemann from Brazil.

## Race calendar and results

| Round | Location | Country | Date | Fastest Qualifying | Winning Pilot | Winning Aircraft |
| 1 | Mina' Zayid, Abu Dhabi | United Arab Emirates | March 26–27 | Hannes Arch | Paul Bonhomme | Edge 540 |
| 2 | Swan River, Perth | Australia | April 17–18 | Paul Bonhomme | Hannes Arch | Edge 540 |
| 3 | Flamengo Beach, Rio de Janeiro | Brazil | May 8–9 | Hannes Arch | Hannes Arch | Edge 540 |
| 4 | Windsor, Ontario | Canada | June 5–6 | Nigel Lamb | Hannes Arch | Edge 540 |
| 5 | New York City | United States | June 19–20 | Hannes Arch | Paul Bonhomme | Edge 540 |
| 6 | EuroSpeedway Lausitz | Germany | August 7–8 | Paul Bonhomme | Hannes Arch | Edge 540 |
| 7 | River Danube, Budapest | Hungary | Cancelled | Cancelled | Cancelled | Cancelled |
| 8 | Lisbon | Portugal | Cancelled | Cancelled | Cancelled | Cancelled |

## Championship standings

| Rank | Pilot | Race Results (Place) | Race Results (Place) | Race Results (Place) | Race Results (Place) | Race Results (Place) | Race Results (Place) | Points |
| Rank | Pilot | UAE | AUS | BRA | CAN | USA | GER | Points |
| 1 | Paul Bonhomme | 1 | 3* | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2* | 64 |
| 2 | Hannes Arch | 11* | 1 | 1* | 1 | 4* | 1 | 60 |
| 3 | Nigel Lamb | 2 | 4 | 2 | 4* | 2 | 4 | 55 |
| 4 | Kirby Chambliss | 6 | 8 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 41 |
| 5 | Pete McLeod | 5 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 5 | 8 | 33 |
| 6 | Nicolas Ivanoff | 9 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 33 |
| 7 | Matt Hall | 8 | 2 | 4 | DSQ | EX | 3 | 31 |
| 8 | Matthias Dolderer | 7 | 7 | 10 | 5 | 10 | 7 | 26 |
| 9 | Michael Goulian | 4 | 11 | 8 | 6 | 7 | 13 | 24 |
| 10 | Péter Besenyei | 3 | 10 | 11 | 10 | 8 | 9 | 21 |
| 11 | Alejandro Maclean | 12 | 13 | 9 | 11 | 9 | 10 | 9 |
| 12 | Yoshihide Muroya | 10 | 9 | 12 | DNS | | 12 | 5 |
| 13 | Sergey Rakhmanin | 15 | 12 | 14 | 8 | 12 | 14 | 4 |
| 14 | Martin Šonka | 13 | 14 | 13 | 12 | 11 | 11 | 2 |
| 15 | Adilson Kindlemann | 14 | | | | | | 0 |
| Colour | Result |
| Gold | Winner |
| Silver | Second place |
| Bronze | Third place |
| Green | Points finish |
| Blue | Non-points finish |
| Blue | Non-classified finish (NC) |
| Purple | Retired (Ret) |
| Red | Did not qualify (DNQ) |
| Red | Did not pre-qualify (DNPQ) |
| Black | Disqualified (DSQ) |
| White | Did not start (DNS) |
| White | Withdrew (WD) |
| White | Race cancelled (C) |
| Blank | Did not practice (DNP) |
| Blank | Did not arrive (DNA) |
| Blank | Excluded (EX) |
(*) indicates the pilot received an extra point for the fastest time in Qualifying
| Position | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9th | 10th | 11th | 12th | 13th | 14th | 15th | Qualifying Fastest |
| Points | 12 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |

## Incidents

At about 11:50AM local time, (3:50 UTC) on 15 April, Brazilian pilot Adilson Kindlemann crashed his MXS-R aircraft into the Swan River in Perth, Western Australia during practice. Rescuers were on the scene within one minute. Kindlemann was taken to Royal Perth Hospital where it was found that he had no serious injuries. It was only the previous day (14 April) that the pilots completed their underwater emergency training. Kindlemann was the first South American to contest the Air Race and was three-times Brazilian aerobatics champion (Unlimited category) when he joined the competition with 18 years aerobatics experience; over 11,000 hours flight time; and about 1,200 hours of aerobatics, as detailed on the official Red Bull Air Race website.
During qualifying for the race in Windsor, Matt Hall nearly crashed his aircraft into the Detroit River. The aircraft lost lift after a series of high-G turns and dipped both wings and a wheel into the water before Hall powered up and out of what could have been a bad wreck. His aircraft was too damaged to continue and he was disqualified from competing both that weekend and the following race in New York.
Spanish pilot Alejandro Maclean was killed on 17 August, when his aircraft crashed into the ground while performing a manoeuvre during a training exercise at Casarrubios del Monte in Spain.