British pilot Nigel Lamb flies through an air gate

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THERE’S Smoke On The Water but the only Deep Purple on display is the Port being guzzled by the huge crowds, as the penultimate round of the 2009 Red Bull Air Race championship gets under way.

“You’re cleared into the tracks – smoke on” is the race-controller’s signal for each of the 15 pilots to individually descend on the Douro river, which separates neighbouring cities Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia.

The aim is to navigate a series of 20-metre pylons known as “air gates” while performing specific manoeuvres without breaking the 370kph speed limit or exceeding forces of 12G.

Canadian Pete McLeod, the youngest pilot at 25, is like a Red Bull in a china shop, racking up the penalty points and complaining of “heavy bird activity” as he fails to qualify.

Nigel Lamb, 53, is left in a stew after failing to reach the super-eight stage, but fellow Briton Paul Bonhomme, 44, is full of bonhomie after winning the dramatic finale to move four points ahead of Austrian rival Hannes Arch, who later insists: “It’s not over yet!”

Bonhomme, a commercial airline pilot, narrowly missed out on the title in 2007 and 2008 and confesses to having “changed tactics” in a bid to go one better.

He adds: “But tactics don’t count for much if you don’t do what you set out to, so maybe that’s what I’m getting better at.”

Compatriot Lamb admits the sport, which demands exceptional skills but provides thrilling entertainment, is “very dangerous”.

He says: “If you make the wrong decision you can hit the surface. But everyone here has spent a lot of time in our machines, which become extensions of us.

“It’s a risk-management exercise but you’ve always got an exit strategy and I very much feel I am the master of my destiny.”

Lamb admits his “season is blown” after becoming “distracted by technical stuff” in his under-performing MXS.

But Bonhomme has no such problems in his Edge 540 and promises to head into the final event in Barcelona on 3/4 October with “all guns blazing”.