Canada's McLeod flies next and he's got his family here to support him
And those split times are in the red but this is still a very strong performance for McLeod... it's clean and that's 59.637 on the timesheet which puts him in 4th with a second run to finesse that
He's up again and will we see a more aggressive stance this time...
200kts through the start gate and he's off! He's almost on Dolderer's time at the first split... but he's lost some time in the Vertical Turning Manoeuvre
It's slipping out of his grasp... that's all red on the splits... and it's 1:00.217 and he stays in 4th place
Spain's Juan Velarde will fly next and after an exceptional start to 2017 with 2nd place in Abu Dhabi he is very capable of upsetting the apple cart here in San Diego
After testing a new set of winglets, Velarde has reverted to his earlier setup
Down in 11th place in the earlier FP3 session, Velarde might have work to do... and that's not the fastest from the Spaniard... he flies clean but he's washing off speed and it's a 1:00.779
Second run and that sweeping turn into Gate 3 might be losing him time and maybe there's more caution due to some over G issues in training
It's a better run this time and looks like those winglets might get canned... 1:00.326 moves him into 6th place
Last pilot to fly in Qualifying here in San Diego is Martin Sonka – the winner of the inaugural race of 2017 in Abu Dhabi
Sonka has Dolderer to knock off the top spot and those first split times are red... so he's got to tighten up those lines... but they are close and this is only his first run so he can push harder next time
It's clean and he moves into 3rd place with 58.980... he's +0.648 behind Dolderer and he needs to make all of those splits green next time if he wants to move to the top spot
- Pylon Hit!
This is SO close! Sonka is in the track for his second run and here we go... it's still red and then it's a pylon hit for the Czech pilot!
Sonka took the gamble with his line there and it didn't pay off but he's a quick learner and will most likely have that ironed out by the morning... he posts 1:01.659 and stays in 3rd for the head to heads
So defending World Champion Matthias Dolderer takes the Qualifying victory in San Diego: "It was a cool run and I had a lot of fun and was totally relaxed. That is key."
OFFICIAL MASTER CLASS QUALIFYING RESULT:
DOLDERER
GOULIAN
SONKA
HALL
MCLEOD
CHAMBLISS
VELARDE
KOPFSTEIN
LE VOT
MUROYA
PODLUNSEK
IVANOFF
BOLTON
BRAGEOT
Thanks for sharing in the sensational Qualifying action with us today! We'll be back tomorrow for the Challenger Cup LIVE at 1200 local time. See you there!
Hello and welcome to Race Day here in San Diego! And what a day we're expecting :)
Returning here to the southern California city, we've enjoyed the sunshine and blue skies... and the fans flocked in their thousands yesterday for Qualifying!
Canada's McLeod flies next and he's got his family here to support him
Niceness to be here with you all today, looking forward to seeing some racing. Will the challenger class be streamed? All the very best and hope proceeding go smoothly as per usual
So sad that I was in San Diego last week and missed the Air Race by 1 week. Looking forward to Matt Hall doing us Aussies proud.
s3.amazonaws.com Such a great event. Glad to have Redbull back in SD
