António Félix da Costa (Carlin), who already won the Macau Grand Prix in 2012, added another win in the world’s most prestigious Formula 3 race today. With his Dallara-Volkswagen, the Portuguese driver won the 15 lap race for the FIA F3 World Cup and became only the third two time winner of the event after Italian Edoardo Mortara and Swede Felix Rosenqvist. The latter, who was aiming for a record third Macau win following his back-to-back victories in 2014 and last year, drove his SJM Theodore Racing by Prema Dallara-Mercedes to second on his seventh participation in Macau. Brazilian Sérgio Sette Câmara, a protege of the Red Bull Junior Team, added to the success of British team Carlin by finishing third.
New Zealand’s Nick Cassidy (SJM Theodore Racing by Prema), who had suffered from a blown right rear tyre early in the race and had come in for a wheel change, was on a mission after his setback: from the back of the field following his stop, he was already up in eleventh place after nine laps. There, however, his progress came to a halt as he crashed into the wall, which caused the second safety car.
Sérgio Sette Câmara had a great getaway and moved up into the lead from third on the grid. Callum Ilott (Van Amersfoort Racing), who started from the front row behind pole-sitter António Félix da Costa, dropped back to third and then even to fifth as he got caught on the outside under braking for the Lisboa right-hander on the opening lap. Behind early race leader Sette Câmara, Félix da Costa was second from Japanese F3 champion Kenta Yamashita (ThreeBond with T-Sport), but the Japanese was under massive pressure from Macau stalwart Felix Rosenqvist. The Swede’s first attack on lap two was in vain, but on the next lap, he made his move stick under braking for Lisboa and moved up into third place. In the same manoeuvre, Ilott also overtook Yamashita, who thus dropped to fifth.
A crash by Nikita Mazepin (HitechGP) at Paiol on the fourth lap brought out the safety car that went on to lead the field for three laps. Racing resumed at the start of lap eight and after the restart, Félix da Costa made perfect use of the slipstream coming out of Mandarin to overtake Sette Câmara for the lead.
The field was released again on lap 13. Rosenqvist tried to repeat his move from the earlier restart, this time against Sette Câmara for second, but initially, it did not work out. One lap later, the Swede was successful, braking at the very last moment and finding a way to overtake the Brazilian. After that, he did everything to close the gap to race leader Félix da Costa, but as the yellow flags were out at Lisboa on the final lap after Arjun Maini (Motopark) had gone straight, Rosenqvist had no more opportunity to mount a challenge. Thus, Félix da Costa motored on to drive a safe victory home, with Rosenqvist second and Sette Câmara third. Yamashita, Ilott, Jake Hughes (Carlin), George Russell (HitechGP), Daniel Juncadella (HitechGP), Pedro Piquet (Van Amersfoort Racing) and Alexander Sims (Double R Racing) rounded out the top ten.
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