Belgian pilot Vincent Delcommene wins first FAI FPV Racing World Cup
Vincent Delcommene became the first FAI FPV Racing World Cup champion, setting the benchmark for modern drone racing with a title that gave the sport its first official world standard.
Vincent Delcommene turned the inaugural FAI FPV Racing World Cup into a milestone for drone racing, winning the first official title and becoming the sport’s first recognized world champion. The Belgian pilot, who also races under the handle VINCBEE, said, “I can’t believe I have become the first ever winner of the Drone Racing World Cup,” and credited years of motorbike and other racing experience for helping him get there.
That result mattered because the FAI’s FPV format is built around precision, not just speed. Pilots fly in first-person view through goggles or a screen fed by the drone’s onboard camera, threading self-built racing machines through specially designed courses. FAI describes those drones as optimized for speed and agility and typically capable of reaching more than 100 mph, which makes the contest as much about reading a narrow video feed and reacting instantly as it is about raw pace.
The inaugural event also showed that the field was deeper than a single headline name. Je-Hak Lee of Korea won the junior category and finished 11th overall with a score of 48, giving the opening World Cup a competitive structure that went beyond a simple exhibition or showcase. With juniors, overall standings and a formal world title, the race established the framework that elite drone racing still uses to separate prospects, specialists and outright champions.
The precedent Delcommene set held up in later FAI championship coverage. The 2019 FAI World Drone Racing Championship Grand Final ran from 11 to 14 December 2019 in Xiangshan, Ningbo, China, where Kang Changhyeon of Korea finished first overall, Thomas Bitmatta of Australia was second and Killian Rousseau of France took third. By then, FAI was already treating the discipline as a fully staged international championship rather than a novelty.
Delcommene’s name stayed attached to that origin point. FAI’s 2023 championship coverage in Namwon, Korea referred to him as a former FAI Drone Racing World Cup champion, and the federation went on to introduce an annual e-Drone Racing World Cup in 2024. What began with one Belgian pilot’s win now sits at the center of how the sport defines its titles, its courses and its competitive ladder.
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