Cheremnykh wins opening FAI Mirror e-Drone Racing World Cup round
Cheremnykh took the first Mirror Cup win, but the real story is the early points split: Sheng and Timofeev are already chasing, and only the top 15 scored.
Miron Cheremnykh left the opening FAI Mirror e-Drone Racing World Cup round with the kind of result that matters long after the first replay fades. He finished first ahead of Yiran Sheng in second and Elisey Timofeev in third, with Aoi Saito and Morten Siimar completing the top five. In a season built on accumulation, that front-end separation is the first clear sign of the pecking order.
The format sharpened the stakes. FAI’s Mirror Cup ran on the EreaDrone simulator over a fully virtual track designed by EreaStudio, with pilots fighting through a three-lap double-elimination bracket. That setup rewards clean execution and consistency as much as outright pace, and the results sheet showed it. Cheremnykh earned 21 world cup points, Sheng took 19 and Timofeev got 18. Saito’s fourth-place run was worth 16, while Siimar’s fifth brought 14. After that, the scoring cliff appeared fast: only the top 15 collected world cup points, with the 15th-place finisher taking just one.
That matters because this is not a standalone sim sprint. The annual e-Drone Racing World Cup, introduced in 2024, is a points race, and FAI says the final top three in the yearly ranking receive CIAM medals and diplomas. Early rounds can become tie-breakers later, and the opening export already drew a line between the contenders and the rest of the field.
The field itself told its own story. The ranked list stretched to 35 pilots and carried a genuinely global look, with names from Spain, China, Australia, Japan, Estonia, Latvia, Malaysia, Brazil, Korea, Ukraine, Belgium, Morocco, Indonesia, Poland, Taiwan, the Philippines, Singapore, India and Great Britain. Behind the podium group were Peteris Ozolins, Kenta Imamura, Ainol Aizizie, Tiago Yuji Sakihama, Lee Hyunsung, Andrii Pashentsev, Janno Siimar, Michel Hallet, Elmars Misevics and Abdesslam Mekouar, a reminder that the first round was deep enough to punish even a small mistake.
Cheremnykh now goes into the next phase with the early advantage, while Sheng and Timofeev have the first pressure point of the season sitting on their backs. The next stop is the Ningbo e-Drone Racing World Cup on June 21, and with seven e-Drone events on the 2026 calendar, the opening round in the Mirror Cup already looks like the race that started sorting out who belongs in the title fight.
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