Yesterday, May 8th 2010, thousands of people flocked to the Flamengo beach in Rio de Janeiro to take part of the Red Bull Air Race competition. Many people gathered close to the Sugar Loaf to take pictures and see those impressive airplanes. Below you will see photos, text and an official video of the Brazil leg of the Air Race.

Many people who live by the Flamengo beach in apartments and penthouse flats, called in their friends celebrate, drink some good Brazilian beer, and have fun above all accompanied with Red Bull, of course! It was a thrilling Saturday!



I was also part of this and invited some of my friends to watch this great show. Please see below some of my pictures, and official shoots from the event. In this post, I also reproduced the Rio Red Bull Rio Press Release.




RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Hannes Arch of Austria came from behind to beat Nigel Lamb of Britain in dramatic fashion on Saturday to win one vital championship point with the fastest Qualifying time at the Red Bull Air Race in Rio de Janeiro in front of a record qualifying-day crowd of 400,000. Britain’s Paul Bonhomme, who still leads the overall championship, was a disappointing third on the high-speed, low-altitude 5,634-metre race track set up in front of Rio’s Flamengo Beach.



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. 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'm pleased I was able to raise my game today. We need every point to catch up with Paul. The engine works great and my team is working great. I'm really motivated for tomorrow,” said Arch.

“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.”

As in any event in Rio de Janeiro, there were beautiful girls too!




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.



It was a disappointing afternoon in Brazil for Russia’s Sergey Rakhmanin (11th), Hungary’s Peter Besenyei (12th), Japan’s Yoshi Muroya (13th) and Martin Sonka of the Czech Republic (14th). They failed to qualify for spots in Sunday’s final but will get a second chance to win the final two spots in the Wild Card competition early on Sunday.




Unfortunately, the event could not be held on Sunday due to heavy rains. All in all, the event was a great success, with most of the city taking part somehow.