What’s On has the best images from the Red Bull Air Race in Abu Dhabi. See pictures from the action sport in Abu Dhabi, over the Corniche.

If you were driving around the Corniche and Marina Mall over Valentine’s weekend, you’d have noticed lots of people staring at the sky. The reason? The capital was hosting the season opener of the 2015 Red Bull Air Race Championship.

Some 14, one-seater planes battled it out over the waters on a purpose-built slalom course of giant inflatables, which the planes have to navigate. As well as reaching a top speed of 370km/h (and the pilots have to deal with forces of up to 10g as a result), these nippy little machines can also fly as low as 15 metres along the intricate course.

So who won? Victory was claimed by British pilot Paul Bonhomme, who recorded a best lap time of 57.747 seconds. Incredibly, Bonhomme only managed to win by the narrowest of margins. In second place was Australian Matt Hall, whose best time was 57.871 seconds.

“I’m happy to be on the podium but it’s kind of frustrating to be so close to winning,” said Hall. “It was just eight one-hundredths of a second! That’s about the length of an airplane that separated us.”

Bonhomme, naturally, was more than happy with his start to the season. “Maybe the other teams are slow coming round the blocks at the start of the season, where our team gets there a bit quicker.”

There’s another seven races scheduled for the rest of 2015, with trips to Ascot in the UK, Budapest in Hungary, Sochi in Russia and Fort Worth in Texas, US. The next stop though is in Japan in Chiba in May. It’s the first time a Red Bull Air Race has been held in the city.

redbullairrace.com. With thanks to breitling.com