The world championship claims: three firsts, and who calls each one that.

"First world championship" is a label, and in drone racing it has been attached to at least three different events. Each claim is given here with the body or writer that makes it. Only one of the three was run by an international air sports federation, the FAI, but that does not make the earlier labels disappear from the record, so all three are set out.

The three claims side by side

Wikipedia adds a further complication: it says France, Australia and the United Kingdom held national-style events before July 2015. Nothing else read for this site confirms them.

Sacramento 2015: a national title, later called a world one

Quartz (via Nextgov) reported the July 2015 event in Sacramento at the time as the first US national drone racing championship. Its winner, Chad Nowak of Australia, is named as champion by Make: and the Christian Science Monitor. In February 2016 The Conversation, explaining the sport, described his win as the crowning of the first world champion of drone racing. The event itself, its organiser and its disputed field size are on the first races.

Hawaii 2016: the DSA's Drone Worlds

The Drone Sports Association announced the Drone Worlds at Kualoa Ranch, Hawaii, for 17 to 22 October 2016, with individual, freestyle, team and wing categories. Its numbers differ by source:

• the DSA's own release (October 2016): 190 pilots from 37 countries;
• DRONE.jp (15 November 2016): about 190 pilots from 39 countries.

No full results page was found. DRONE.jp names the individual racing champion only by the first name Shaun, from the United States, so the champion's full name is unconfirmed. A search summary of an RC news site said Team USA took the top places in the wing class; the page itself was not opened, so that is unconfirmed too.

MultiGP's 2015 and 2016 champion was Shaun Taylor (Model Aviation, April 2017). No source read for this site says that he and the Drone Worlds individual champion are the same person, so this site does not treat them as one.

Shenzhen 2018 and the FAI's numbered championships

The FAI's news of 4 November 2018, read on its 2025 mirror site, reports its 1st World Drone Racing Championship at the Shenzhen Universiade Centre Stadium, with 127 pilots from 34 countries. Rudi Browning of Australia, aged 15, won, ahead of Bastian Hackl of Austria and Karlis Gross of Latvia; Australia won the team title. Other accounts differ on the numbers:

• a 2018 press report, seen only as a search summary, said Browning beat 127 other pilots, which makes 128;
• Wikipedia says more than 128 competitors and gives the winner's age as 17, where the FAI gives 15.

This site uses the FAI's figures. Search summaries give the dates as 1 to 4 November 2018; the FAI page read gives four days of competition ending on or before 4 November, so the exact dates are unconfirmed.

The FAI lists its editions as Shenzhen (2018), Ningbo (2019), Namwon, Korea (2023) and Hangzhou, China (2024) (FAI, 6 May 2024). Their overall champions, as the FAI reports them:

No 2026 FAI World Drone Racing Championship was found when this page was written; the FAI's full 2026 calendar could not be read. The FAI's championship history, including the gap between 2019 and 2023, is on the FAI and drone racing, and the full results are on FAI World Championships.

"World" titles that organisers give their own events

The word "world" also appears in titles that are not the FAI's. These are each organiser's own titles. They are not FAI championships, and no body's titles or rankings are merged with another's on this site.

• MultiGP calls the winner of its annual Championship a world champion; its 2025 recap names Joaquin "Jbox" Ybanez the 2025 Pro Class World Champion. It also calls the main race of its International Open, held at the AMA's headquarters in Muncie, Indiana, the World Cup (AMA blog, 1 June 2026). Neither is the FAI's championship or the FAI's World Cup. See MultiGP history.
• The Drone Racing League named season champions. The Ringer (2018) called Jordan "Jet" Temkin a two-time DRL champion; a DRL release seen only as a search summary called him the 2017 "DRL Allianz World Champion", so the year attribution is unconfirmed. In 2024 The Drone Girl described pilots as a defending and a two-time DRL World Champion. See Drone Racing League history.
• TEKNOFEST, in Turkiye, lists World Drone Cup winners from 2019 onward; its competition page does not mention the FAI.
• The Drone Champions League ends its season with a Super Final that decides what it calls its World Champion (DCL, 29 December 2025).

The same pilot names appear in the results of several of these bodies. No body read for this site confirms that matching names belong to the same person, so this site does not say they do. Current seasons are on Events.