Lamb flies into the lead for Red Bull Air Race finale

Bad weather forced the cancellation of the final three rounds at the Las Vegas stop of the Red Bull Air Race Championship over the weekend, but a strong flight in qualifying gave Pete McLeod his first-ever win and put Nigel Lamb in the overall lead.

Strong winds made for a very topsy-turvy race in Las Vegas, with several penalties and mistakes from the seasoned Red Bull Air Race pilots. When the winds refused to die down on the second day of racing, the Race Committee made the difficult decision to discontinue the Top 12 round of the Red Bull Air Race in Las Vegas.

That meant that the results from the last completed flying session – Saturday’s qualifying round – counted as the final race result. That gave Canada’s Pete McLeod a bittersweet first place finish.

Check out the full Red Bull Air Race standings

“I've thought about winning so many times and this definitely isn't the way I imagined it would be, so it's very disappointing that the race played out this way,” McLeod said after the race that saw him crowned the youngest winner in the sport’s history. “I still want to earn my first win in the Final Four."

The wind caused a number of problems on the second day of the event: for one, it created very turbulent flying conditions for the pilots, which led to a number of mistakes and penalties. The bigger concern, however, was the wind’s effect on the race pylons. The gusts of up to 30 knots kept causing the 25-meter-high pylons to deflate, meaning there was a risk that they would topple over into an aircraft.

Some pilots did take to the air in the Top 12, but by the time McLeod’s turn came up, he decided he had seen enough of the risky winds and grounded himself. The Race Committee saw things the same way and called off the rest of the day’s racing.

We all fly in the wind but it's the pylons themselves. If you hit a soft pylon then it doesn't have the correct pressure to be safe. (Pete McLeod)

The final results had a significant effect on the overall Championship standings as well. Nigel Lamb was awarded second place, which propelled him into the top spot on 53 points with one race to go in the season. Hannes Arch and Paul Bonhomme – fifth and seventh in Las Vegas – trail Lamb with 48 and 47 points, respectively.

The Championship will come down to a showdown between those three pilots at the final race in Spielberg, Austria. Lamb can clinch the title with a first or second place finish; Arch and Bonhomme will have to go for the win while trying to keep Lamb of the podium if they are to keep their championship dreams alive.

“We'll go to Austria, have a good time and see if we can win," said an upbeat Bonhomme after the disappointing turn of events in Las Vegas.

The 2014 Red Bull Air Race season has seen four lead changes in the overall standings – the most exciting season yet! Stay with DHL InMotion for the thrilling conclusion to the season in Spielberg, Austria on October 25-26.