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American Goulian Wins 2018 Red Bull Air Race at IMS

October 07, 2018 | By Red Bull Air Race

Michael Goulian became the first American pilot to win over home soil since 2008 when he put in a spectacular performance in the Final 4 to take the top spot on the podium and also now sits top of the World Championship standings.

Nicolas Ivanoff, in his first Final 4 since Abu Dhabi 2106, flew first and set a competitive time of 1:06.951. It looked like it was going to be a tough time to beat. Goulian was second into the track and was able to knock 0.743s off Ivanoff's time and put himself top of the timesheet.

Ben Murphy, flying in the first Final 4 of his career, handled the pressure well and flew cleanly and crisply, but was unable to better the times set by the two more experienced pilots.

Pete McLeod was the final pilot to fly and he had set the fastest time of the day. He was unable to repeat that time, but he stopped the clock at 1:06.736, which was enough to split Goulian and Ivanoff to claim second place and his first podium of the season.

After the race a tearful Goulian said: "Right now the season doesn't even mean anything – to win at Indy is amazing. Everybody wanted a fight to the finish for the World Championship, and that's what they're going to get."

With one race to go, Goulian now sits top of the standings with 70 points. Martin Sonka drops to second, just five points behind and Matt Hall has dropped to third just seven points off the top. This means the World Championship will go down to the final round in Fort Worth next month.