South Africa’s very own Red Bull athlete, local Gqeberha pilot Patrick Davidson, has taken a spectacular first-place victory in Round 1 of the 2025 Air Race X Championship following a somewhat dominant performance where he defeated  Japanese superstar Yoshi Muroya for the first time.

Representing Team 77, Davidson delivered a dominant performance, finishing ahead of Japan’s Yoshi Muroya who place second and Red Bull’s Martin Šonka in third. The opening round of the championship that was a virtual round sees eight elite pilots from six different countries competing in high-performance aircraft and flying through AI generated pylons chasing time and precision, reaching speeds up to 400 km/h and the pilots being subjected to maximum gravitational forces of up to 12G. In the quarter final his time was excluded as he had exceeded the maximum allowable g-forces whilst performing his first sharp turn caused by his on-board camera mount having shifted during the take-off and pressing against his trim button resulting in extra trim being applied during the turn. “The rule is that if you exceed 12 g’s for safety reasons you have to land immediately do an inspection of the aircraft and you are normally excluded from the event as you have not yet set a time. We went ahead and set times for the semi-final round as well as the final round with a relatively open mind thinking that we were out of the running, but unbeknown to us Australian pilot Emma McDonald was unable to log a time due to a technical problem on her aircraft and did not start. The rules state that should there be a non-starter then the fastest qualifier takes priority, which luckily was us. Apologies to Emma but it was very lucky for us as we could push through and maintain the fast pace that saw us get through to the final against Yoshi who I managed to beat by over a second finishing in a time of 59.50 ” an excited Davidson said.

Davidson used the Makhanda airfield as his base for the event and set the fastest time in qualifying and then went on to rack up an impressive 33 points (25 race points + 8 qualification points), placing him firmly at the top of the championship leader board thus setting the tone for the rest of the championship. “It’s great to start off the season on such a positive note and hope to carry the momentum through to the next round. I would like to thank my team as well as my family for all of the support and really look forward to the next round.” added Davidson

This victory is a proud moment for South African aviation and showcases the talent, precision, and dedication of the Red Bull team as well as the various partners that are supporting Davidson.

The next round of the four event championship takes place on the 6^th July.