Reigning World Champion Muroya Flying for Hat Trick of Wins at Home

Expect a frenzy of “Yoshi Mania” when the Red Bull Air Race comes to Chiba, Japan, for the fourth year in a row May 26-27, as Yoshihide Muroya flies in his first home race since being crowned World Champion last October at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. While the country’s super fans go wild, Muroya’s opponents will go all-out to deny him a third consecutive home win.

No pilot in the Red Bull Air Race World Championship is more closely associated with a racetrack than Muroya with Chiba: Over 300,000 fans have turned out to watch him speed over Tokyo Bay in past seasons, and he is the only contender in the 2018 lineup to have won a race at the port city.

In 2016, the energy of the Chiba crowd boosted Muroya to his first career victory, and after his repeat triumph there last year, a third win would make him the first pilot in the history of the sport to earn a hat-trick in his own country.

Muroya is also looking for another first in Chiba – his maiden win of the 2018 season. While Muroya, from Fukushima, Japan, has been steady so far, he has yet to dominate in his defense of the title. Japan’s hero finds himself in third overall, five points behind leader Michael Goulian of the USA and just two ticks from Australian Matt Hall. The trio behind Muroya on the leaderboard – Matthias Dolderer (Germany), Martin Šonka(Czech Republic) and Kirby Chambliss (USA) – all have claimed overall podium positions in the past, including World Championships for Dolderer and Chambliss.

After Chiba, the race teams already will be staring down the midpoint of the calendar. With no clear frontrunner, and the 14-pilot field so spine-tinglingly tight that results came down to thousandths of a second at the recent stop in France, the race in Chiba could be a free-for-all.

The second-to-last Red Bull Air Race of the season will be Oct. 6-7 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Visit IMS.com to buy tickets and for event information.