Australia's Matt Hall will fly in the 2022 World Championship Air Race (WCAR) to defend the title he won two years ago.
Hall won the championship with third place in the last ever round of the Red Bull Air Race held in Chiba, Japan, in 2019.
Hall will compete in the revamped and revitalised WCAR in the AeroGP1 category, the top-tier competition that pits 12 teams against each other in three elimination rounds.
So far, the Australian is the only pilot confirmed to have been selected for the series, with the organisers still going through the process of securing the right pilots to race, with candidates being measured against strict criteria.
"What we do know, is that you really need to be young, because you learn fast," said WCAR Head of Training Steve Jones. "You need to have very good motor skills, maybe because you've been a fast-jet military pilot in the past; maybe you've been a crop-spraying pilot.
"Certainly aerobatic display pilots tend to be good, because they've got all the characteristics we're looking for.
"Finally you need a will to win, because it's a punchy old competition!"
The series has yet to be finalised, but WCAR is confident of an opening event in the first quarter of 2022.