The series expanded rapidly, gaining World Championship status from the FAI in 2005. That year, American pilot Mike Mangold won the first world title across seven races. The calendar grew to include ten venues on six continents, with peak crowds estimated at one million for the Barcelona finale in 2009. Yet the sport proved financially fragile: the 2011, 2012, and 2013 seasons were cancelled entirely as Red Bull restructured for safety and sustainability. The championship returned in 2014, and Briton Paul Bonhomme—who had narrowly missed the title twice—finally claimed his crown in 2009. The series concluded in 2019 after more than ninety races, its final curtain falling at Chiba, Japan, before 100,000 spectators along the shoreline. Though the gates are deflated, the Red Bull Air Race remains the most successful attempt to bring pylon racing to the television age—proving that the hunger for man-against-machine spectacle endures beyond the closed-course era of Reno.