Hashimoto Yuki wins Japan Drone League Round 3 in photo finish

Hashimoto Yuki outlasted Yamamoto Yuki by just 0.268 seconds to win Japan Drone League Round 3, a final that made the Pro class feel less like a procession and more like a title fight. Inukai Taiki finished third as the league’s official results sheet captured a finish tight enough to define the weekend.

The three-way podium came out of two days of racing at Chupchunika in Yuni, Hokkaido, with practice on June 20 and qualifying plus finals on June 21. The event page listed Novice, Open, Expert and Pro classes, and the league staged the Pro and Expert quarterfinals, semifinals and finals on the final day. Spectators were admitted free, while entry cost 10,000 yen, transponder rental was 1,200 yen and transponder purchase was 5,500 yen. All aircraft had to be registered under Japan’s drone rules.

The margin mattered because Hashimoto arrived with a resume that already carried global weight. Born in 2007, he began drone racing at 13 after a school competition in February 2021. He went on to win the 2024 FAI World Drone Racing Championships and added gold at The World Games in Chengdu, China, on August 16, 2025. That background made the duel with Yamamoto Yuki feel like a direct pressure test of a reigning champion rather than a routine round win.

Japan Drone League has built Round 3 into the middle of a seven-round 2026 season that began with Round 1 in Kashima, Ibaraki, and Round 2 in Naka, Tokushima. The league also used 2025 rankings to set class placement for this season, sending the top 15 into Pro and ranks 16 through 30 into Expert. That system put the sharpest pilots in the same bracket, and the result in Yuni showed how little separated the front of the field.

For Japan Drone League, the headline is not just Hashimoto’s win but the way he had to earn it. A 0.268-second gap over Yamamoto is the kind of finish that gives a championship season a center of gravity, and Round 3 finally gave JDL 2026 one.