With scintillating training times on Friday, Austria’s Hannes Arch raises hopes that he can come from behind to win the 2014 Red Bull Air Race World Championship in Sunday’s season finale showdown at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg.

SPIELBERG (Austria) – Local hero Hannes Arch threw a scare into his Red Bull Air Race World Championship rivals Nigel Lamb and Paul Bonhomme by dominating both training sessions on Friday ahead of the 2014 season showdown race on Sunday in Spielberg, Austria. Arch put in several blistering training runs on the picturesque Alpine track and was atop the time sheets in both the morning session and then once again after the lunch break, stopping the clock in a track record time of 56.108 seconds in the afternoon session under bright sunny skies and cool temperatures.

Arch,  who has 48 championship points and is just five points behind Lamb (53 points) and one ahead of Bonhomme (47 points) in third place, could snatch the 2014 title with a victory, worth 12 points, in Sunday’s race provided Lamb finishes in third place or lower. Lamb was third in Friday’s afternoon training session with a time of 57.604 while Bonhomme took fifth with a time of 58.673. Lamb was further off the pace in seventh in the morning session while Bonhomme was second earlier in the day to the Austrian, who grew up in the nearby town of Trofaiaich (population 8,000). Arch won the 2008 World Championship and finished a close second to Bonhomme in the 2009 and 2010 World Championships.

While the training sessions do not count for points, the times are an important indicator of current form as well as prestige and the pilots tend to take them quite seriously the closer they get to Qualifying on Saturday. Friday afternoon’s training is generally considered one of the most important sessions. There is one more training session on Saturday

“Everything went well and I had a really good feeling out there,” said Arch, who has won two of the seven races so far this year compared to Lamb’s one victory – which could be the decisive advantage if they both end up with the same number of points. “I’m getting to know the track better each time out there. We noticed a few things in my flying lines before this last session and were able to fix that. Everything is going really well and I’m looking forward to the race.”

The one consolation for Lamb and Bonhomme, watching Arch flying so well at home, is that that the Austrian also dominated several training sessions before the last race in Las Vegas but stumbled in Qualifying and ended up fifth.

Source and picture: RedBullAirRace.com