Shenzhen hosts first FAI world drone racing championship
Shenzhen gave drone racing its first official world title, with 128 pilots from 34 countries flying a 650-meter course lit by 7,000 meters of LEDs.
FAI awarded the inaugural world championship to Shenzhen after weighing bids from Shenzhen, Albuquerque and Barcelona. The four-day event at Shenzhen Universiade Centre Stadium brought 128 competitors from 34 countries.
The championship ran from 1 to 4 November 2018 on a 650-meter course spread across three vertical layers with a six-meter height difference. The track was shaped like a traditional Chinese knot and wrapped in 7,000 meters of LED lighting, and the opening ceremony included a drone display of 300 aircraft forming “1978,” FAI’s logo and “Shenzhen.”
There were 44 juniors and 13 women among the 128 racers, along with 34 team managers, 72 helpers and 40 official supporters. In Lausanne, FAI President Frits Brink said Shenzhen’s bid was the most convincing in scale and scope.
On the track, 15-year-old Rudi Browning beat 127 other racers from 34 countries to become the first FAI World Drone Racing Champion, finishing ahead of Austria’s Bastian Hackl and Latvia’s Karlie Gross. Australia won the team title, Sweden took silver and South Korea bronze, while 11-year-old Wanraya Wannapong of Thailand won the women’s championship and Oscar Nilsson of Sweden took the junior crown. Browning, who started drone racing in 2014 after taking up aeromodelling in 2010, called the result “absolutely amazing.”
FAI later returned to the same Shenzhen course for the 2025 Legacy e-Drone Racing World Cup.
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