One of the most prestigious races in world Motorsport is the annual Macau Formula Three race.
It has been won in the past by Formula One legends such as Ayrton Senna, David Coulthard and Michael Schumacher. Other winners with Formula One experience include Ralf Schumacher, Ralf Firman and Takuma Sato.
This year some of the more famous names taking part include GP2 drivers Sebastien Buemi and Bruno Senna, who is trying to repeat his late uncle’s victory here in 1983.
More of the famous names are; Formula Three Euroseries champion Romain Grosjean, A1GP Champion Nico Hulkenberg and British Formula Three Champion Marko Asmer.
The “Stars of Tomorrow” list is also represented. Joining Grosjean (number eight), Buemi (number four), Asmer (number three) and Hulkenberg (number one) is number two Oliver Jarvis.
The action began with practice on Thursday. In this session Grosjean was fastest driving for ASM, second was Buemi in a Riakkonen-Robertson Racing car with Asmer third for Hitech Racing.
Grosjean may have set fastest time but he did not escape problems as on his in lap he was collected by British series runner Stephen Jelly driving for Riakkonen-Robertson Racing who hit the barrier.
The next session was the first qualifying session to set the provisional grid. Taking provisional pole position was Asmer who was two tenths faster than Grosjean, setting up a fight between the British and European Champions we did not see in the Zandvoort Masters of Formula Three, held at Zolder earlier in the year.
Third place on the provisional grid went to Euroseries racer Yelmer Buurman for Manor Motorsport. There was disappointment for Senna who was only twentieth for Raikkonen-Robertson Racing. He crashed early in the session and then was hit by Fortec Motorsport driver Takuya Izawa who finished sixth in the Japanese Championship this year.
The only driver not classified after setting a time outside 110% of Asmer’s provisional pole time was Swiss Racing Team driver Jo Merszei who drove two races in the Asian Formula Renault Championship in 2007.
After the qualifying session four drivers were given grid penalties. ASM driver Kamui Kobayashi from the Euroseries and Signature Plus driver Atte Mustonen from the British series were given three place grid penalties for entering the fast lane of the pit lane before the exit was open.
ASM driver Hulkenberg from the Euroseries and Cheong Lou Meng driving for Swiss Racing Team were also given three place grid penalties for ignoring red lights telling him to stop for a random weight check.
Friday was contested in the same format as Thursday, with a morning practice session followed by final qualifying to decide the grid.
In the morning practice session the times were topped again by Asmer. Second place just 0.038 seconds back from Asmer was Kodai Tsukakoshi who was fifth in the Japanese Formula Three Championship this year. He is driving for Manor Motorsport this weekend. Third was Jarvis who was second in the Japanese Championship driving for Team Reckless Tom's.
Second qualifying saw Jarvis take a shock pole position after being nowhere on Thursday. He was 0.192 seconds faster than Asmer who will start second. Third place was Tsukakoshi, another driver who had been off the pace on Thursday.
Senna will have a hard job to repeat his uncle’s victory after qualifying down in eighteenth place.
The session was interrupted by three red flags. The first was brought out after twelve minutes when Euroseries racer Renger van der Zande crashed his Prema Powerteam into the barriers.
The second red flag was brought out Brendon Hartley the Formula Renault Eurocup champion driving for Carlin Motorsport who also hit the barriers. Just minutes after the session restarted when Walter Grubmuller who raced in the British, Australian and Asia-Pacific Formula Three Championships this year crashed his Hitech Racing car.
The Saturday action consisted of the weekend’s first race, known as the Qualification Race, the drivers lined up in the order that they had qualified during Thursday and Friday. It was scheduled to be a ten lap race that would decide the starting grid for Sunday’s main race.
Before the race began there were two more drivers that would receive grid penalties. Buemi who was due to line up in fourth place was given a five place penalty for ignoring yellow flags in Friday’s qualifying session. His drop means he started the race ninth
The other driver in trouble was Buurman who after qualifying tenth was demoted to thirteenth for entering the fast lane of the pits before the pit exit was open.
The race was won by pole man Jarvis after a race long battle with fellow front row man, Asmer.
Asmer took the lead early in the race. On the first lap three front runners were taken out of contention. Signature Plus driver Edoardo Mortara from the Euroseries championship braked too late Buemi who could do nothing about hitting Tsukakoshi. This eliminated both Mortara and Buemi from the race and puts them to the back of the grid fir the main race. Tsukakoshi recovered to finish ninth.
Lap two saw the introduction of the safety car to recover the Signature plus car of British Championship races Esteban Guerrieri. Immediately after the race resumed Jarvis was able to put pressure on Asmer eventually regaining the lead on lap five.
He would pull out to a lead of 2.3 seconds by lap nine when the race was stopped following a series of big accidents.
Lap seven saw Senna and Hulkenberg have a crash together followed just one lap later by Mustonen hitting the wall and becoming stranded in the middle of the track.
Jarvis won from Asmer with Japanese Formula Three champion Kazuya Oshima third for Team Reckless Tom’s.
Fourth place went to Euroseries’ James Jakes driving for Manor Motorsport, ahead of Carlin Motorsport driver Sam Bird and Buurman in sixth.
Their was disaster for pre-race favourite Grosjean, he suffered a puncture and was forced to retire eventually being classified in twenty-first place.
Following the race Senna was taken to hospital for precautionary checks after he injured his hand in his accident with Hulkenberg. The doctors discovered that he had a badly bruised thumb meaning that he was not deemed fit to race on Sunday.
In Sunday morning warm-up, Jarvis was fastest 0.188 seconds faster than his team mate Oshima. Grosjean was third, with Jarvis’ closest competitor, Asmer, in tenth place.
In the main race, it was Oliver Jarvis who dominated the race to win the 25th running of the Macau Grand Prix. He led every lap and, apart from an early lunge from Asmer, was unchallenged on his way to victory.
On the opening lap Asmer was along side Jarvis but he could not find a way past and lost places to Oshima and Bird on the run down to the first turn.
Once he had re-passed Bird he started closing down Oshima, who in turn closed the gap to Jarvis.
The leaders were unchanged for the next few laps until on lap seven Euroseries racer Frank Mailleux crashed his Manor Motorsport car heavily leaving it stranded in a dangerous position.
The safety car was needed to remove the car, bunching up the leaders.
At the restart Jarvis opened up a one second lead over Oshima. Behind him Asmer lost his third place to Tsukakoshi.
Tsukakoshi then passed Oshima to take second place on lap thirteen and chased after Jarvis.
Jarvis was in complete control of the race by this point and was even able to back of on the last few laps and still won by 1.7 seconds from Tsukakoshi.
Oshima finished third, with Asmer in fourth. Runner up in the Japanese series Robert Streit was fifth for Prema Powerteam. Sixth was Bird, Euroseries racer James Jakes was seventh for Manor Motorsport.
Grosjean battled his way back to eighth place from twenty-first on the grid. Jelly was ninth and Mortara finished tenth.
The fastest lap was set my Asmer, a lap time of 2:11.744 set on lap six
Written: Sun, 18 Nov 2007 11:44:22
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