Macau GP: Higgledy-piggledy 🎥
CRASHFESTIVAL At the Macau Grand Prix, the Asian drivers were among themselves, with one exception. Record winner Rob Huff and the Chinese provided many turbulent scenes in all races, as the video shows. The summary of the five final races only with race sound and without disturbing commentary is best entertainment. The action-packed scenes speak for themselves. The [...]
The summary of the five final races only with race sound and without disturbing commentary is best entertainment. The action-packed scenes speak for themselves.
The notorious 6.1-kilometer Guia Circuit in the urban canyons of the gambling city of Macau is one of the most demanding in the world. Hardly a race goes by without an accident - yellow and red flags for neutralization or abort alternate lively.
A Briton among Chinese
The 67th Macau Grand Prix and its supporting races will not go down in history for its winners or losers like many previous stagings. Because entrants from Europe or other continents have to go into quarantine, teams and drivers from Macau, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan were among themselves.
The only exception was Rob Huff, who endured this measure and then went for his tenth victory in Macau in the Guia Race for TCR touring cars.
Devastating collision
However, the former Chevrolet WTCC teammate of Alain Menu from Geneva did not get his money's worth. Although the Briton was by far the fastest with one of the four rarely seen MG 6 X Power TCRs used in TCR China.
After the obligatory victory in the qualifying race, however, the 2012 world champion did not get off to the best possible start in the main race. So he had to line up behind the Lynk & Co. 03 of Ma Qing Hua, who also has World Championship experience.
His attack on the Chinese on the second lap ended disastrously for the latter and for the supposed winner Rob Huff with a 30-second penalty retrospectively and rightly so. First place then went to Hua's Lynk teammate Jason Zhang Zhi Qiang.
Hard decision of the stewards
The fastest also failed to win in the GT sports car field. Previous winners were Edoardo Mortara from Geneva in 2015 to 2017 and Raffaele Marciello from Ticino (FIA GT World Cup 2018).
Darryl O'Young, who is also known from European races, clearly decided the qualifying race in his favor with a Mercedes-AMG GT3. However, the stewards saw misconduct at the start, although as pole setter he was allowed to set the pace and had little influence on the minimum distance to the car next to him, which was chalked up to him.
The subsequent time penalty, which was incomprehensible not only to him, relegated him to 11th place on the grid for the final race. A neutralization and finally the abort, which happened shortly after his advance to the leaders, thwarted a podium or even a fourth Macau victory.
Local GP winner and famous name
The actual Macau Grand Prix, held last year for the first time with current and more than 250 km/h fast FIA Formula 3 race cars (among others by Jenzer Motorsport from Lyss), was reserved for the drivers of the Chinese Formula 4 championship.
The Makanese Charles Leong, who impressed in practice and in the run-up to the race, will go down in the annals as only the second local GP winner after André Couto in 2009. Famous predecessors included Ayrton Senna in 1983, Michael Schumacher in 1990, Ralf Schumacher in 1995, and the current Formula E champion António Félix da Costa in 2012 and 2016.
Edoardo Mortara from Geneva, who started under Italian nationality at the time, won the Macau Grand Prix in 2009 and 2010 on Dallara-VW, which ultimately paved the way for him to become a Mercedes works driver. The GP winner can at best only dream of this in the exceptional year 2020.
