Cool grey days greeted the drivers for the practice and qualifying sessions of the 61st Macau Grand Prix last month, but by the weekend, the skies had cleared and the sun was out, providing perfect conditions some exciting road battles
Felix Rosenqvist was the big winner at the meet, winning both the Qualification Race on Saturday and the main event on Sunday, in the Suncity Group Formula 3 Grand Prix.
The victories didn’t come easily though, with the young Swede coming up against stiff challenges from team-mate Lucas Auer.
Starting together on the front row of the grid for Sunday’s race, Auer managed to get out in front and lead the field on the straight down to Lisboa, only to brake late and lose his lead.
Seconds later, this year’s Euro F3 champion Esteban Ocon crashed into the barriers at San Francisco Bend, taking Tom Blomqvist with him. The resulting pile-up saw Japanese driver Yu Kanamaru launch his car spectacularly over the cars of Jordan King and Blomqvist, ending up on top of the barriers.
With the race red flagged, the surviving drivers returned to the grid for some frantic emergency repairs before the re-start.
The second start of the race saw an almost identical repeat of the first, with Auer again leading the pack and again misjudging the Lisboa corner, allowing Rosenqvist and New Zealand driver Nick Cassidy through.
Rosenqvist took advantage of his experience on the circuit and consistently extended his lead for the remainder of the race. Meanwhile Cassidy, making his debut in Macau, was left to fend off a determined Auer for the next 14 laps.
Despite an impressive performance, Cassidy hit the wall on lap 13 and damaged his car, allowing Auer through to take second place across the line, 4.37 seconds behind this year’s champion, Felix Rosenqvist, making it an impressive 1-2 result for the Mucke Motorsport team.
“For the first time in my life I am completely out of words,” Rosenqvist said. “I had luck with me, the car was quick and I did really well. It all came together for me for once. I couldn’t feel any better right now, it is unbelievable.”
Special mention has to be made of rising star Max Verstappen who started at the back of the grid after crashing in qualifying. The 17-year-old Dutchman, on his first visit Macau, fought back valiantly to finish a very respectable seventh.
The Comeback Kid
Returning to Macau after a three-year hiatus due to injury, Scottish rider Stuart Easton took to the Guia circuit like a duck to water. So dominant was his performance over the weekend, it was hard to believe he had ever been away since winning his hat-trick in 2010.
With his victory in the second Qualifying Race, Easton found himself in pole position for the 48th Suncity Group Macau Motorcycle Grand Prix, ahead of eight-time champion Michael Rutter and Lee Johnston.
Easton got off to a perfect start and never looked back, extending his lead by over a second for the next 11 laps. He took the checkered flag with ease, riding his PBM by the Venetian Hotel Kawasaki across the line a comfortable 14 seconds ahead of Rutter.
“It didn’t feel that easy! The plan worked, which was to get away in front and settle in for a couple of laps, and try and set a pace that I felt fast enough but still comfortable with, so if anyone came with me, we could race at the end. It’s nice to win on my return having missed three years, to take pole and to win. I couldn’t have asked more from the tyres, from the bike and from the whole team.”
Rutter had to fight hard for his second spot on the podium, first against Lee Johnston, then Gary Johnson and finally Martin Jessop. In the end, he managed to fend off all challengers to clinch second place, a nail-biting half a second ahead of Jessop.
“We knew Stuart was going to be competitive, but he’s done a brilliant job”, conceded Rutter after the race.
AMG Victory
In its seventh edition, this year’s Macau GT Cup saw a record 31 entrants, driving some of the most powerful super cars in the world. Chasing his seventh win in Macau and fourth in the GT Cup, Edoardo Mortara was looking strong as he took pole position for the race in his Audi R8 RMS Ultra, next to team mate Laurens Vanthoor. But when the race started it was the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3’s of Maro Engels and Renger Van Der Zande that managed to lead the pack into the first corner.
The Mercedes-AMG Driving Academy team mates went on to dominate the 12-lap race with Engel triumphantly taking the checkered flag. The victory was particularly sweet for him given the disappointment of last year’s race when a punctured tyre on the penultimate lap cost him victory.
“It’s amazing. It’s everything I dreamed of last year. The start worked out perfectly. We had a lot of torque, and that propelled me into Turn one. We put in a lot of effort, and the 1-2 with Renger makes it really special,” said the victorious Engel.
Team-mate Van Der Zande was also thrilled with the result.
“I didn’t think we could go for a 1-2 after yesterday. Our pace wasn’t all that good all weekend, and the Audi’s have been quicker. At Macau it’s all about staying out of the wall – and we stayed out of the wall so I’m very happy.”
Mortara meanwhile was clearly disappointed not to have made it four victories in a row, but with the competition getting more serious every year, fans should be in for another big showdown in 2015.
Lopez Dominates
This year’s WTCC champion, Argentinean Jose Maria Lopez made his debut in Macau in confident style, taking pole position for Race 1 and going on to take the checkered flag in his Citroen Elysee, securing the 10th victory of his maiden season.
“I am very happy,” said Lopez. “The 10th win of the season is something I could never have imagined when the year started.”
In Race 2, Portuguese driver Tiago Montiero made a great start from fourth on the grid to lead the entire race. He looked seemingly unstoppable until tragically in lap 10 his Honda Civic had a problem with its power steering, forcing him out of the race.
This left Briton Robert Huff in the lead, a position he held on to till the end, giving the Lada manufacturing team its second first-place for the season.
“To finish the season off with the win, considering where we started this year, is fantastic,” he said. “We won on merit and it shows all the hard work we have done over the course of this year.”
All in all, an exciting Macau meet for the WTCC cars, as they celebrated 10 great years of racing in Macau this year.
