After the double-weekend excitement of last year’s diamond jubilee Macau Grand Prix, this year the renowned motorsports event enters its seventh decade with a typically exciting line-up of international drivers and diverse race categories
Of all the races over the Macau Grand Prix weekend, the Suncity Group Formula 3 event is arguably the hardest to predict. Every year some of the very best young drivers from the various F3 championships around the world come to battle it out in Macau for the perfect end-of-season match-up. And given the challenging nature of the unforgiving Guia Circuit, it really could be anyone’s race.
Certainly one of the top drivers to be looking out for this year will be Frenchman Esteban Ocon, who took out this year’s F3 European Championship title. Last year Ocon made his debut in Macau with a very credible tenth place finish. This year he is definitely one of the top favourites as he drives for last year’s winning team SJM Theodore Racing by Prema, together with Canadian Nicholas Latifi who finished ninth last year in Macau, and Ferrari F1 protégé, Italian Antonio Fuoco.
Making Ocon work hard for any victory will be the very exciting Max Verstappen, who finished third in the European Championship and will be making his Macau debut. At just 17 years of age and in his first year of racing, Verstappen has already been signed up by the Toro Rosso F1 team for next year.
Runner up to Ocon in the European circuit and eighth place in last year’s Macau GP, Tom Blomqvist will return to see if he can move up the rankings. He will be one of the five-strong Carlin team, which also features this year’s German F3 champion Markus Pommer, and British driver Jordan King, who set the fastest lap time in Macau in 2013.
One driver who will certainly be a crowd favourite is Chinese racer Martin Cao Hongwei. Cao made history this year by becoming the first ever Chinese driver to win the British F3 Championship. He will be racing with Fortec Motorsport with team mate Santino Ferruci from the US, who at 16 years of age is the youngest driver in the field.
Rounding out the list of this year’s F3 champions is Kenta Yamashita who finished a close second overall in the Japanese Formula 3 Championship. He will join the TOM’s team, which boasts the most wins of any team in Macau and will this year celebrate their 40th anniversary.
For the first time since 2010, Macau will be represented in the F3 category. Seventeen-year-old Andy Chang Wing Chung made his F3 debut this season, finishing an impressive sixth overall in the British championship.
Another driver to pay attention to will be Colombian Tatiana Calderon, the first female driver to race in the Macau F3 GP since 1983. She will compete with the Germany’s Mucke Motorsport, joining 2012 Macau runner-up Felix Rosenqvist of Sweden.
Ten top years
This year is the World Touring Car Championship’s turn to celebrate a Macau anniversary, returning to race its final season leg for the tenth consecutive year with the Guia Race of Macau Presented by Suncity Group.
It has been a very different and fresh looking season for the WTCC in 2014, with series newcomer Citroën dominating nearly all the races. A new Manufacturer’s Champion also sees an all-new Driver’s Champion, with Jose Maria Lopez of Argentina comfortably leading the field overall, after a blistering nine wins so far this season.
Behind the wheel of a Citroën C-Elysee, Lopez is nearly 100 points ahead of his nearest rival, last year’s champion and fellow Citroën driver, Yvan Muller. Muller will be looking to consolidate his current second place ranking in Macau, but will have to fend off nine-time FIA World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb who is only 30 points behind him.
Loeb, also driving a Citroën, made his Macau debut last year, coming in second in the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia race.
Racing in green and white for Macau will be local drivers Mak Ka Lok and Filipe De Souza, both behind the wheels of BMW 320 TC’s. De Souza recently won four of the six rounds held so far in Beijing, Shanghai and Suzuka, collecting a total of 40 points to win the WTCC Asia Trophy.
Two wheel madness
Last year’s Macau Motorcycle Grand Prix saw Yorkshireman Ian Hutchinson finally manage to reach the top of podium, after a confident race against fellow Brits Michael Rutter and Gary Johnson.
The undisputed King of Macau on two wheels, Rutter was looking for his ninth win last year, but wasn’t able to hold off the determined Hutchinson, who was returning from an 18-month layoff due to injury. This year Rutter is back to have another crack at it and will be a force to reckon with as always.
Also returning from a long hiatus is former three-time Macau winner Stuart Easton. In 2010, Easton won his Macau hat-trick, setting a track record of 2:23.616, which still stands today. Fans were looking forward to seeing him return in 2011, however in May that year while in free practice for the North West 200, Easton crashed badly. He sustained heavy injuries including breaking both femurs, shattering his pelvis in five places, breaking his coccyx, rupturing his bowel, and breaking some fingers. This year he will make a triumphant return and the crowds will be very excited to see if he can get back to some of his earlier magical form.
Other big names in road racing and familiar faces in Macau will include John McGuinness, Martin Jessop, Jeremy Toye and Mark Miller.
And hot on the heels of four Isle of Man TT wins this year, Michael Dunlop, son of 1989 Macau Motorcycle GP winner Robert Dunlop, will be back after a two year absence to see if he can add another Macau trophy to the family collection.
Mr Macau
Every year since its inauguration in 2008, the Macau GT Cup has become more and more competitive. One driver who has made the race his own in recent years is Italian Edoardo Mortara (now nick-named 'Mr Macau') the two-time winner of the Macau F3 GP who last year achieved his GT Cup hat-trick. This year he will be back to look for victory number four in his Audi R8 RMS.
Last year’s victory did not come easily for Mortara, facing fierce battles with the likes of Maro Engels and Alex Imperatori. Engels started from pole position in his Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 and was leading the field when a puncture put him out of the race in Lap 8. No doubt he will be looking for better luck this time round.
Imperatori finished third last year so he will also be aiming to step higher on the podium this year.
A man who is no stranger to the Macau GT Cup podium is Briton Danny Watts. He has finished in the top three ever since the race began in 2008, but has never managed to get the top spot. This year he will be back for another shot at it in his United Autosports McLaren MP4.
Other famous names in the world of motorsports joining this year’s field of drivers include: reigning Porsche Carrera Cup Asia champion Earl Bamber; newly-crowned DTM Champion and third place in the 2011 Macau F3 GP Marco Wittmann; fellow DTM driver and former WTCC competitor Augusto Farfus; two-time Macau GT Cup winner Keita Sawa; and former WTCC driver and Macau regular Darryl O’Young.
Macau will have two drivers in the race this year, André Couto and Rodolfo Ávila. Couto won the Macau F3 GP in 2000, has competed in the WTCC races, and partnered with Edoardo Mortara in last year’s Audi R8 LMS Cup, coming in second place behind his team mate. Ávila has previously raced in Macau in the F3 GP, Porsche Carrera Cup Asia, WTTC and GT Cup. He finished in fourth place in this year’s Porsche Carrera Cup Asia Championships.
The 36-car grid for this year will see the likes of Audi, Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Aston Martin and for the first time a Bentley Continental GT3, this year driven by former Macau F3 GP driver Jean-Karl Vernay.
> > > For full details of this year’s Macau Grand Prix go to www.macau.grandprix.gov.mo > > >
