Phygital Drone Racing presented by insurancemarket.ae semi-finalists confirmed

This isn’t just drone racing... This is Phygital Drone Racing presented by insurancemarket.ae and over the past two days, 16 clubs have been competing through the opening rounds at the Games of the Future Abu Dhabi 2025 powered by ADNOC.

In the digital qualification stage, each club took part in a time trial using a virtual simulation on a PC, which was a replica of the main stage track. They had three attempts to complete the circuit in the fastest combined time taken by all club members – including the time required for pilot changeover.

These times decided the rankings for the quarter finals on the main stage at ADNEC in Abu Dhabi. From the qualification stage, the top four qualifiers, and therefore the ones to watch, were:

1. Tech Drone League (TDL)
2. Drone Racing One
3. Team BDS
4. Team Millenium

In the quarter-finals, each heat took place with four clubs on the stunning and difficult track, which challenged all the clubs as they fought to win a place in the semis, cheered on by a packed stadium.

Tech Drone League (TDL) took on Rolf, Spain Drone Team and Belka Team. Over a fast-paced 50 laps, the lead swapped between TDK and Rolf several times – including when TDL changed their drone in the last two laps. However, TDL held on to take the win, with Rolf 38 seconds behind them.

1st Tech Drone League (TDL) 2nd Rolf

The second quarter-final saw Team BDS completely dominate the race from start to finish against Team Cyclone, Team Heart of America and Flat-Out. They finished five laps ahead of their nearest rivals. Behind them, the race was a bit more dramatic – with Team Cyclone losing a drone on lap 29 and then losing another on lap 31, which is where their race ended.

Despite being 3rd in the opening laps of the race – and even in last position at one point – Team Heart of America were able to capitalize on Team Cyclone’s mistakes and got another lucky break when Flat-Out hit a couple of gates. They finished second and are into the next round.

1st Team BDS 2nd Team Heart of America

There was an epic turn of events in the third quarter-final. Drone Racing One had been leading for most of the race, despite losing a drone earlier, but E7 overtook them in lap 45. In lap 47, Drone Racing One fell back even further after clashing with Team LATAM.

However, the drama continued when pit stops in the last two laps for both E7 and Drone Racing One closed the gap between them, but E7 were able to hang onto the lead and finished first. Both made it through to the next round.

Describing the race, Marc Singularity Espuña Fontcuberta from E7 said “It was actually super intense. We knew we had some very good teams competing, so we had to keep everything together. But we knew that if we flew the way we know we can, we would get a great result.”

1st E7 2nd Drone Racing One

The final race of the day didn’t disappoint with plenty of clashes and lost drones that changed the order regularly. All four teams – Team Millenium, RASENGAN, Team Raiden and Super Pulse all led the race at some point. Super Pulse lost two drones in the course of five laps, which took them out of the race completely after 37 laps. That left Team Millenium to win the race, with Team Raiden coming in 3 minutes behind.

Team Millenium’s Killian KIKI Thomas Rousseau said: “There was a lot of stress for me and my teammate, we practiced a lot and tried different strategy and today, I feel we were the only ones doing two pit-stops – we made no mistake at all. I feel way better right now.”

1st Team Millenium 2nd Team Raiden

And now we look ahead to the last day of competition which happens on 22 December, where the semi-final line-up will be as follows:

• Tech Drone League,
• Team BDS,
• Drone Racing One
• Team Raiden

• E7
• Team Millenium,
• Rolf
• Team Heart of America

For more details about the GOTF 2025 timetable, plus all the results so far, go to our schedule page here.

You can watch the semi-finals, and the final, live from 15:30 GST on the official GOTF OTT Platform – your home for live streams, replays, highlights, and exclusive behind-the-scenes content from GOTF 2025.