Australia Drone Nationals qualifying race tightens, top 96 earn spots
IQ0 led Open Class by 0.64 seconds as AUFPV’s cut line sharpened, with only 96 Open and 48 Pro Spec spots on the road to Toowong.
The fight for Australia’s Drone Nationals has already turned into a cut-line race, and the margins at the top are thin enough to change a pilot’s season in one clean lap. AUFPV’s qualifying window ran from March 1 through June 30, with only the top 96 pilots in Open Class earning Nationals spots and, new for 2026, only the top 48 in Pro Spec advancing.
That pressure showed up on the leaderboard immediately. IQ0 held the Open Class lead at 26.39 seconds, with BMSThomas next at 27.03 and Screecher third at 27.10. That is a gap of just 0.64 seconds from first to second and 0.71 from first to third, the kind of spread that leaves almost no room for a wobble through a gate or a slow line through a turn. In a field listed at 120 Open pilots, every tenth of a second mattered.
AUFPV’s qualifying setup added another wrinkle. The 2026 track was designed by reigning champion Wilf, and it was live on Velocidrone, giving pilots a fixed benchmark before the real pressure of the summer grind. Laps had to be completed on the approved track in the correct order, with timing starting and finishing at the start/finish gate. That makes the series less about one hot lap and more about repetition, discipline and risk management over months, not minutes.
The hardware spread on the leaderboard also said plenty about the field. The top spots included HDZero setups, and AUFPV’s broader ratings page listed Screecher, Wilf, BMSThomas, heepsy, Red2rotor and Fizz among the sport’s leading names. That mix matters because it shows the qualifier is not sorting pilots by one winning configuration. It is sorting by execution.
The prize at the end of the window is the Australian Drone Nationals, scheduled for September 30 through October 4 at Western Districts Rugby Football Club, Memorial Park, 65 Sylvan Rd, Toowong, Queensland 4066. AUFPV’s schedule opens with registration, check-in and free practice on Wednesday, September 30, then Open Class qualifying on Thursday, October 1, bracket racing and finals on Friday, October 2, Micro Class on Saturday, October 3, and Team Racing plus fun fly and exhibition on Sunday, October 4.
The names near the top are already familiar. Wilf won Open Class at the 2025 Nationals, with Screecher second and Fizz third, while Screecher topped Pro Spec over SQuiD-FPV and Dimsim. AUFPV’s past Nationals page shows how mobile the championship has been over the years, from Brisbane in 2025 to Townsville in 2024 and 2023, Canberra in 2022 and 2019, Fremantle in 2018 and Gold Coast in 2017 and 2016. This year, the race is not just to win laps. It is to stay inside the line long enough to get to Toowong at all.
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