Gemfan pilots sweep podiums at Ningbo drone racing world cup
Gemfan’s sponsored pilots swept Open, Junior and Women’s podiums in Ningbo, and Yuki Hashimoto clinched the Open title in two straight heats with the MJ5129.2 prop.
Gemfan did not just leave Ningbo with a win. Its sponsored pilots swept the podiums in Open, Junior and Women’s, and Yuki Hashimoto closed out the Open Class final in two races to take the title before the best-of-five format ever reached a third heat.
The 2026 XiaoLiu FAI Drone Racing World Cup stop ran from May 28 to May 31 at Ningbo Sports Development Center Stadium and drew more than 100 elite pilots from Poland, Russia, South Korea, Japan and China. That field size matters because this was not a local showcase dressed up as a major event. It was a deep international test on one of the sport’s biggest stages.
The Open Class final carried the weekend. Gemfan said the championship race was run in a best-of-five format, with the first pilot to reach two wins taking the crown. Four Gemfan-sponsored pilots made the final lineup: Yuki Hashimoto, Wang Miao, Minjae Kim and Kim TaeYang. Kim TaeYang failed to finish the opening race, giving Hashimoto the first win. Hashimoto then repeated the result in Race 2 and sealed the title without needing a third heat.
Wang Miao finished second and Minjae Kim took third. Gemfan said positions four through twelve were also dominated by its sponsored pilots, turning the final standings into a clean statement of depth rather than a one-off breakthrough.
The equipment story is what makes the Ningbo result more interesting than a routine sponsor recap. Hashimoto flew the MJ5129.2 propeller, a design co-developed with Minjae Kim. Gemfan described the blade as high-strength polycarbonate and said each prop weighed just 4.12 grams, about 10 percent lighter than conventional racing props. In a format where a single bad start or a small loss of efficiency can flip a final, that kind of weight savings is not cosmetic. It is the difference between carrying speed through a gate line and bleeding it in the turn.
The sweep across Open, Junior and Women’s also suggests the package translated beyond one pilot or one bracket. For Gemfan, Ningbo was not just a podium photo. It was proof that a specific prop setup, a deep bench of pilots and a pressure-heavy world cup format could line up across multiple classes and deliver the kind of result that travels through the rest of the 2026 FAI season.
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