After finishing runner-up twice, victory in Barcelona means the new Red Bull Air Race World Champion Paul Bonhomme has finally got the monkey off his back.
The Red Bull Air Race has a flair for the dramatic. In the final round, the four best pilots from the weekend fly one last lap of the course. They take off at the same time; they land at the same time and can only hear the race director when they’re up. No one knows who’s won until it’s all over.
This year, the world championship came down to the wire as Paul Bonhomme and defending champion Hannes Arch flew into the final four in Spain for one last winner-takes-all duel in the skies above Barcelona. Bonhomme flew third, and then had four minutes alone with his thoughts while Arch flew last. It should have been nerve-wracking but “actually I saw Hannes knock down a pylon – so I kind of knew.” Super cool Bonhomme doesn’t really do melodrama.
But that didn’t stop the British pilot from letting out a bellow of pure joy when race director Jim DiMatteo confirmed that he had won the Barcelona Air Race and with it the world championship. It wasn’t quite the tone he uses when welcoming passengers aboard the British Airways 747 he flies when not upside down at 230mph, 10 metres above the water. But there was quite a lot of pent-up frustration for Paul to let out.
At the beginning of the 2009 season, Bonhomme shared the record for most wins with veteran Mike Mangold. He forged ahead with wins in Canada and Portugal, but while the American was a double world champion, Paul had been runner-up twice. The only thing Paul likes less than finishing second is being asked what it’s like finishing second. He’s a good-humoured individual, but it gets on his nerves.
Fortunately, that particular monkey is now off his back – and he’s extremely pleased about it. “You really don’t want to continually finish second, do you?” He says. “That’s what’s going to be so nice about next year – I’ll be able to race without people constantly asking me about it.”
But it’s hard to see how the pilot could improve on his 2009 performance: the lowest he finished all season was – ironically – second and, arguably, those were the standout performances. On circuits that didn’t suit his plane, and on days when things were going badly, he managed to ignore frustration, avoid mistakes and take the best result away from the race that he possibly could – frequently beating rivals with faster aircraft but less self-discipline.
'You really don’t want to continually finish second, do you?'
It’s a universally acknowledged rule in Formula One that the more popular the racer, the more of his rival’s champagne ends up poured over his overalls and it also applies to the Air Race: when Bonhomme came to face the press after his victory, he was clutching a towel and leaving a trail of vintage bubbly behind him.
It says a lot, but he’s not only popular. On a timed run, he simply oozed class. He’s incredibly smooth, hits fewer pylons than anybody, and keeps his control inputs down to the bare minimum. Out of the cockpit, he’s affable and chatty; inside, he wears a game face of fierce, almost pained, focus. His rivals all say he is the guy they watch most closely in the air; the one who’s style they’d like to emulate.
Bonhomme calls the admiration of his peers “humbling”. But it goes both ways. “I’ve seen a lot of pilots fly. Some are very smooth with their handling of the aeroplane; others have good management skills in the cockpit; others are just good thinkers. What I’d like to think is that I’ve taken the best bits from many, rather than simply copying one individual. I think that makes me a better all-round competitor.”
It’s an impressive turnaround for someone who left school largely unqualified; who burned through a string of jobs before being handed the sweeper’s brush at the local airfield. From there, he didn’t look back. General aviation and aerobatics followed.
He became a commercial pilot and graduated to flying for scheduled airlines while also putting in the hours at air shows. He’s half of the famous Matadors formation display team, along with former Red Bull Air racer and current expert summariser Steve Jones, and also flies Spitfires and Mustangs for the Old Flying Machine Company. He also became a father at the start of the year. But don’t expect him to slow down. Flying, he says, is still too much fun. “I love aviation and I love competing, and if you can combine the two it’s just the very best sensation and I adore it – and it’s even better if you win.”
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