It was back-to-back wins for Yoshihide Muroya as he earned a double repeat with consecutive wins in a season to claim top spot overall.
The Czech Republic had a pair of pilots on the podium for the first time ever with Petr Kopfstein and Martin Sonka in second and third.
Muroya’s Final 4 time of 55.288 was a convincing 0.558 of a second ahead of Kopfstein, who earned his career-first podium in only his second World Championship season.
Meanwhile, Sonka, earned third for his second podium placing of the year.
The result escalated the drama of an already thrilling season as Muroya edged ahead of Sonka in the standings to take the top of the overall leaderboard for the first time in his career, with two race wins to one triumph for the Czech pilot.
However, they are tied in the points standings at 30 each as the eight-race World Championship heads toward its midpoint with the fourth stop in Budapest, Hungary on 1-2 July.
“We are really happy to win again in Chiba, and I want to thank everybody here in Japan for their support. I had some luck, but in the end some of the other pilots made mistakes,” said Muroya, whose previous 2017 win was at the April stop in San Diego.
“We have another five races, so we need to continue as we are doing. Our team setup is quite good, and we must stick with the same tactics, stay with the plan and go forward as normal to win more races.”
Tickets for the 2017 Red Bull Air Race World Championship – including the fourth stop in the heart of Budapest, Hungary on 1-2 July – are on sale now.
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Results Master Class Chiba 2017:
1. Yoshihide Muroya (JPN), 2. Petr Kopfstein (CZE), 3. Martin Šonka (CZE), 4. Matthias Dolderer (GER), 5. Michael Goulian (USA), 6. Matt Hall (AUS), 7. Pete McLeod (CAN), 8. Kirby Chambliss (USA), 9. Mikaël Brageot (FRA), 10. Juan Velarde (ESP), 11. François Le Vot (FRA), 12. Peter Podlunšek (SLO), 13. Nicolas Ivanoff (FRA), 14. Cristian Bolton (CHI)
World Championship standings after three races:
1. Yoshihide Muroya (JPN) 30 pts, 2. Martin Šonka (CZE) 30 pts, 3. Matthias Dolderer (GER) 23 pts, 4. Petr Kopfstein (CZE) 17 pts, 5. Pete McLeod (CAN) 14 pts, 6. Michael Goulian (USA) 14 pts, 7. Juan Velarde (ESP) 13 pts, 8. Peter Podlunšek (SLO) 12 pts, 9. Kirby Chambliss (USA) 10 pts, 10. Nicolas Ivanoff (FRA) 10 pts, 11. Matt Hall (AUS) 8 pts, 12. Cristian Bolton (CHI) 4 pts, 13. Mikaël Brageot (FRA) 4 pts, 14. François Le Vot (FRA) 3 pts
