Lake Balaton produced one of the most exciting races in Red Bull Air Race’s 14 seasons. One of the reasons it was so captivating was due to the variety lines the pilots could take to try and shave time off their laps. 

It didn’t come down to guesswork. After each session every Master Class pilot could be found hunched over a laptop in deep conversation with their tactician to see where they went wrong, and where they could improve. 

This year, Red Bull Air Race pilot Kirby Chambliss has a chance to move up to second place on the all-time race wins list and claim his third season crown. Here, he and his teammates share their perspectives on how they define success – and what it will take to achieve it. 

Chambliss himself is not counting race wins. “For Team Chambliss, success would be to win the World Championship,” he states. “To do that you have to win races, of course. When you win enough races, the Championship will follow.” 

Britain’s Ben Murphy made the rest of the Master Class pack sit up and take note when he became the highest point scorer of any Challenger promoted to the Master Class in their debut season. 

Murphy finished 7th overall with 29 points, and also obtained a spot in the Final 4 twice throughout 2018 – quite the achievement for a pilot in their first season. 

"Most of our challenges have to do with nature," says Marko van Es, who as Head of Racetrack Operations leads the setup at every stop with his colleague Ivanka Kösters. He has seen a lot since he first got involved in the sport back in 2005.

The six-cylinder Lycoming engine has a solid history in the world of competition aerobatics. However, the versions used in the raceplanes have been customised to the exact specifications of the Red Bull Air Race and were built in Lycoming's Advanced Technology Center.

After each flying session the pilots can be found sitting down in front of a computer next to their analyst trying to work out the smallest of changes they could make to improve the next flight.

Nigel Lamb was one of the first pilots to see the benefit of adding a race analyst to his team. He brought in his son Max, an engineering graduate, who played his part in Lamb becoming the 2014 World Champion.

One of those questions has been answered by Kirby Chambliss, after he recently announced that engineering and aerodynamic professor Paulo Iscold has joined Team Chambliss for 2016.

Much like every member of Team Chambliss, Iscold lives and breathes aviation. He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerias (UFMG) in his hometown, Belo Horizonte, Brazil and is now a renowned specialist in aircraft design. Students at UFMG know Paulo as a professor, where he teaches multiple courses on aircraft design and applied aerodynamics.