Hong Kong Open drone racing championship delivers tight Pro Class battle
LiveFPV showed a 10-driver Pro Class race at the Hong Kong Open that packed 51 laps into three June 27 qualifiers. The short schedule left no room for mistakes.
The LiveFPV board turned the Hong Kong Open into a numbers race: 10 Pro Class drivers, 51 total laps, and three qualifier rounds compressed into one decisive June 27 run. Race 1 went off at 11:47 a.m., Race 2 at 12:03 p.m. and Race 3 at 12:24 p.m., a schedule that left almost no breathing room between heats.
That kind of field size changes the racing. Ten pilots is small enough that one crash, one bobble, or one clipped gate can wreck a weekend, but large enough to keep the pressure high from start to finish. With 51 laps on the board, the event rewarded clean execution and repeatability more than raw speed alone, and the Overall Results and Rankings tabs showed a structured championship fight, not a casual fly-in.
The Hong Kong stop sat inside the FAI World Cup Drone Racing calendar, where 15 competitions from 13 countries were registered and planned for 2026. FAI classifies those World Cup events as second-category competitions built on individual participation rather than national teams, and it says eligibility is open to pilots with a valid FAI Sporting Licence or FAI Drone Permission. In other words, Hong Kong was not operating in isolation. It was one stop in a global season that stretched across Asia and Europe.
Hong Kong has been part of that pipeline for years. The first FAI-sanctioned Hong Kong Open Drone Racing Championship took place on November 17, 2019 at Fung Kai No. 1 Secondary School in Sheung Shui, and FAI described it as the first civil-aviation-department-approved drone race in Hong Kong. That inaugural event drew 23 racers from Korea, the USA, Norway, China, Chinese Taipei and Macau, with Sungju Park taking the title ahead of Ronnie Chow and Ken Inoue.
That earlier race also doubled as a preliminary event for the 2019 FAI World Drone Racing Championship Grand Final in Ningbo, China, which is why the city still matters in the sport’s competitive map. FAI’s broader drone-sports push now includes the 2024 World Drone Racing Championship in Hangzhou, China, from October 31 to November 3, and the launch of the first FAI E-Drone Racing World Cup series in 2024. Hong Kong’s compact Pro Class battle fit that modern standard perfectly: short gaps, tight margins, and a board where consistency decided who stayed in the fight.
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