After starting the competition poorly a fortnight ago, the 2004 European Champion progressed steadily up the rankings to throughout the next week to lay sixth overall with four races left.

The poor weather which blighted the middle stages of this championship continued with Tuesday's race cancelled.

Strong winds on Wednesday gave the competitors plenty to think about with Cheetham only managing 19th place in the 312.5km race and dropped four places to 10th in the standings, with the overall leader, Olivier Darroze, from France, consolidating his position by winning the race.

With just two races left, Cheetham lay more than 450 points off the bronze medal and would need mistakes from his rivals to add a world championship medal to his career haul.

The next day, Cheetham completed his 455.4km race at an average speed of 120.3kmph, to finish 11th in a very close race and while he made up some of the points gap, he stayed in 10th.

The weather forced Friday's race to be cancelled, denying Russell a final chance to move up the standings. The pilots all flew more than 2,700km over the eight races that were possible.

18m Class final standings: 1 Olivier Darroze (Fra) 6,853pts, 2 Ronald Termaat (Ned) 6,755, 3 Karol Staryszak (Pol) 6,606, 10 Russell Cheetham (GBR) 6,144.