Britain’s Ben Murphy finished 5th in the Red Bull Air Race this weekend in the Russian city of Kazan.
The Blades Racing Team pilot lost out in the round of 8 but the result is Ben’s best for the 2018 season beating his 6th place in Abu Dhabi.
After qualifying 4th with a time of 0:53.088 Ben went on to race Petr Kopfstein int he round of 14. A clean run saw him beat the Czech pilot by a fraction with a time of 0.53.709 to Kopfstein’s 0.53.766.
The Round of 8 saw Ben lose by a similar margin when Martin Stonka posted a time of 0.52.009 to Ben’s 0.52.809! Czech pilot Stonka went on to win the event.
Speaking after the event Ben said “There’s still a lot to learn, but the team is in a really good place. We’re happy with the aeroplane now, happy with the flying and the way we’re putting the preparation together. It went pretty much as per our gameplan. The only icing on the cake could have been a Final 4 round, but that will come soon, we hope. The plan for this race was to really go hard in Qualifying, and if we could get a good position in Qualifying, it would set us up for the race. And that’s exactly what we did – we got a fourth in Quali and then a fifth overall. So really happy. It’s our first season, we’re learning so much about the aeroplane, how to set it up, how to fly it. So we’ll go away from here with lots of valuable lessons learned, ready to take to Austria. We started the season with a sixth in Abu Dhabi, so a fifth here, and hopefully a Final 4 sometime soon.”
Red Bull Air Race Kazan 2018 Results
| Rank | Pilot Name | Country | Time | Penalties | Points |
| 1 | Martin Sonka | CZE | 0:52.123 | 0:00.000 | 15 |
| 2 | Michael Goulian | USA | 0:52.238 | 0:00.000 | 12 |
| 3 | Kirby Chambliss | USA | 0:52.304 | 0:00.000 | 9 |
| 4 | Juan Velarde | ESP | 0:52.686 | 0:00.000 | 7 |
| 5 | Ben Murphy | GBR | 0:52.809 | 0:00.000 | 6 |
| 6 | Francois Le Vot | FRA | 0:53.140 | 0:00.000 | 5 |
| 7 | Matt Hall | AUS | 0:55.036 | 0:03.000 | 4 |
| 8 | Yoshihide Muroya | JPN | DSQ | 0 | 3 |
| 9 | Petr Kopfstein | CZE | 0:53.766 | 0:00.000 | 2 |
| 10 | Nicolas Ivanoff | FRA | 0:53.809 | 0:00.000 | 1 |
| 11 | Pete McLeod | CAN | 0:54.940 | 0:02.000 | 0 |
| 12 | Mika Brageot | FRA | 0:55.111 | 0:02.000 | 0 |
| 13 | Matthias Dolderer | GER | 0:55.335 | 0:03.000 | 0 |
| 14 | Cristian Bolton | CHI | 0:55.544 | 0:02.000 | 0 |
