【Macau Grand Prix F3 / Guia】

World’s best F3 drivers get together for Macau Grand Prix.
Rosenqvist wins the most prestigious street race in Asia.

Macau Grand Prix F3

Date	November 13-16, 2014
Venue	Guia Circuit / Macau
Weather	Fine
Surface	Dry
Race Lap	Final Race : 15Laps Qualify Race : 10Laps (1Lap = 3,703ｍ)

• >>Report
• >>Result

Macau Grand Prix is one of the oldest race meetings in East Asia, being held for the 61st time this year. The feature race of the event has been run with the Formula 3 (F3) cars since 1983. With many aspiring young drivers getting together to compete from all corners of the world, it has always attracted much attention from the international racing community as “the race of world’s F3 champions.”

The winner in 1983, the first year with F3 cars, was the late Ayrton Senna. Young Michael Schumacher, who was called as “Kaiser” – which means Emperor in German – when he dominated Formula One world championship later, also won Macau Grand Prix race in 1990. So it is quite natural that the race has been widely considered as a stepping stone to success in the F1 Grand Prix racing.

Yokohama Tire has served as the sole tire supplier of the Macau Grand Prix F3 race since 1983. By providing the quality race tires, together with the efficient on-site support system, for many years, the company has successfully built a great deal of trust not only with the race organizers but with the participating teams as well.

The sessions on the track started on Thursday. The fastest driver in Free Practice 1 was Lucas Auer, the nephew of ex-Grand Prix driver Gerhart Berger, who clocked 2’14”645. Then Qualifying 1 in the afternoon went quietly without any major drama. While Auer took the top slot in the middle of the session, the Austrian’s lap time was surpassed by Tom Blomqvist whose father is ex-World Rally Champion, Stig Blomqvist. For this time, the rally master’s son won the fight between the two who had natural speed in their DNA and Blomqvist’s best lap time, 2’11”922, put him on the top of the Q1 result.

Friday’s schedule began with Free Practice 2. The protagonist of the session was Felix Rosenqvist who set the fastest time, 2’11”743, and then crashed in the mountain section on the next lap. The session was red-flagged and no one could better the Swede’s time in the remaining minutes after the track being cleared, so Rosenqvist’s name stayed on the highest place of the time sheet until the session ended.

Qualifying 2 got underway at five past 2 p.m. The starting grids for Qualification Race were to be decided by each driver’s combined time from Qualifying 1 and 2. Rosenqvist’s car that he crashed in the previous session was fully repaired and he was one of the leading figures in this session again. Although Auer, Esteban Ocon, and a few others were initially faster than him, Rosenqvist exceeded them by setting 2’11”506 in the closing minutes of the Qualifying 2. Soon after that, however, there was a crash that caused the red flag and the session wasn’t resumed, which meant Rosenqvist secured the pole position for the Qualification Race on Saturday.

The formation lap for Qualification Race began at 20 minutes past 2 p.m. The finishing position of this race would be very important for the leading drivers because the result of the race would decide the starting grids for Final Race on Sunday.

Rosenqvist’s start was OK but Auer, starting from the second grid, managed to get ahead of the pole sitter on his way to the Mandarin Oriental bend. Then Max Verstappen also overtook Rosenqvist at Lisboa and moved up to second.

Auer tried to pull away from Verstappen but, unfortunately for the Austrian, the Safety Car came out because of an accident on Lap 4. This meant the gap Auer had built during the first three laps was nullified and now it was Rosenqvist’s turn to hit back, as Verstappen had already dropped out of race when the racing resumed on Lap 8. Making the most of the slip streaming behind Auer at the restart, Rosenqvist regained the lead position and kept it for the remaining laps of the ten lap race. Auer finished in second, followed by Blomqvist.

After a few supporting races, including that of the World Touring Car Championship, the F3 competitors took their grids for Final Race, which was scheduled to start at a half past 3 p.m. Just before the start, the traditional Lion Dance was performed on the grid, which is now customary, and added to the fun and heat of the Grand Prix.

This time, Auer made a better getaway and led the field when they got to Lisboa. But he couldn’t negotiate the first tight corner, losing a few positions as a result. Now Rosenqvist regained the lead position, followed by Ocon and Blomqvist. However, these two in second and third also made mistakes at St. Francisco bend and both crashed out of the race before completing the opening lap!

With some other cars behind them getting involved in the accident, the race control had to red-flagged the race. When the halted cars were cleared and the damaged barriers repaired, the race resumed with the Safety Car start but the 28 car field was reduced to 22 at the time of restart.

When the Safety Car came in after a lap, the race leader Rosenqvist made a perfect restart and pulled away from the rest of the field, as Auer made the same mistake at Lisboa on the lap again. Eventually, no one could threaten Rosenqvist’s lead position after that. This was the first victory at Macau for the Swede who had made his fifth appearance in this prestigious event this year. Auer finished the race in second and Nick Cassidy from New Zealand came in third to join the podium celebration.