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F3 Macau GP: Rosenqvist holds off Leclerc to become dual winner

Felix Rosenqvist held off a tenacious pursuit from Charles Leclerc to win the Macau Grand Prix

In doing so, the Swede emulated Edoardo Mortara by taking back-to-back Macau wins.

But Rosenqvist's Prema Powerteam Dallara-Mercedes looked seriously under threat from the Van Amersfoort Racing Dallara-Volkswagen of Leclerc in the early stages.

The Monegasque pulled off a superb manoeuvre, passing Rosenqvist on the brakes on the outside line to take the lead at Lisboa on the first lap.

Going into lap two, Rosenqvist got into Leclerc's slipstream out of R Bend and dived inside at the Reservoir kink, only for Leclerc to then pick up the tow and repeat his first-lap move.

That was moments before the race was suspended, owing to the track at Fishermans Bend being littered with debris and the stricken cars of Gustavo Menezes, Ryan Tveter and Mitsunori Takaboshi.

After the restart, Leclerc had no chance of repelling Rosenqvist, who drafted past out of the Mandarin kink, while Sam MacLeod took advantage and passed Leclerc on the brakes into Lisboa.

The Team West-Tec car kept Leclerc at bay until the seventh lap while Rosenqvist extended his advantage to over two seconds, before Leclerc passed the Scot around the outside into Lisboa.

The gap remained around two seconds for several laps before Leclerc gained, finishing just 1.168 seconds behind.

MacLeod lost his podium position on lap eight when he got into a slide at Moorish and hit the wall, before bringing his car into the pits to change a punctured tyre.

Alexander Sims therefore moved up to third in his Double R Racing car, and looked as though he could be under threat from qualification race on-the-road winner Antonio Giovinazzi, who had charged through from 10th on the grid, but the Carlin driver couldn't bring the gap much under a second.

Markus Pommer took fifth for the Motopark team after passing team-mate Sergio Sette Camara, who then pitted with a puncture.

Santino Ferrucci was a lonely sixth in his Mucke Motorsport car, while the second VAR machine of Alessio Lorandi came out on top of a battle with Prema's Lance Stroll for seventh.

Stroll's team-mate Jake Dennis was ninth, with T-Sport's Arjun Maini completing the top 10 on the second competitive outing for the new ThreeBond/Tomei engine.

Callum Ilott's miserable weekend, which started so promisingly with second in opening qualifying, ended with a crash at Police.

MacLeod set fastest lap once he rejoined after his pitstop, only for Sette Camara - the last driver to cross the line - to lower that laptime on his final tour, which was the fastest racing lap ever around Macau.

RESULTS - 15 LAPS:

Pos Driver Team Car Time Gap
1 Felix Rosenqvist SJM Theodore Racing by Prema Powerteam Dallara/Mercedes 48m56.347s -
2 Charles Leclerc Van Amersfoort Racing Dallara/Volkswagen 48m57.515s 1.168s
3 Alexander Sims Double R Racing Dallara/Mercedes 49m01.422s 5.075s
4 Antonio Giovinazzi Carlin with LC8.com Dallara/Volkswagen 49m02.295s 5.948s
5 Markus Pommer Motopark Dallara/Volkswagen 49m08.050s 11.703s
6 Santino Ferrucci KFZTeile24 Mucke Motorsport Dallara/Mercedes 49m13.210s 16.863s
7 Alessio Lorandi Van Amersfoort Racing Dallara/Volkswagen 49m15.122s 18.775s
8 Lance Stroll SJM Theodore Racing by Prema Powerteam Dallara/Mercedes 49m18.893s 22.546s
9 Jake Dennis SJM Theodore Racing by Prema Powerteam Dallara/Mercedes 49m20.702s 24.355s
10 Arjun Maini ThreeBond with T-Sport Dallara/Threebond 49m21.210s 24.863s
11 Dorian Boccolacci Signature Dallara/Volkswagen 49m24.606s 28.259s
12 Nick Cassidy TOM'S Dallara/Toyota 49m25.218s 28.871s
13 Alexander Albon Signature Dallara/Volkswagen 49m26.602s 30.255s
14 Andy Chang Fortec Motorsports Dallara/Mercedes 49m29.138s 32.791s
15 Kenta Yamashita TOM'S Dallara/Toyota 49m29.893s 33.546s
16 Yuhi Sekiguchi B-MAX Racing Team Dallara/Toyota 49m30.501s 34.154s
17 Martin Cao Fortec Motorsports Dallara/Mercedes 49m43.422s 47.075s
18 Matt Solomon Double R Racing Dallara/Mercedes 49m43.716s 47.369s
19 Mikkel Jensen KFZTeile24 Mucke Motorsport Dallara/Mercedes 49m45.587s 49.240s
20 Sam MacLeod Team West-Tec F3 Dallara/Mercedes 49m53.411s 57.064s
21 Zhi Cong Li Jo Zeller Racing Dallara/Mercedes 50m13.320s 1m16.973s
22 Sergio Sette Camara Motopark Dallara/Volkswagen 50m57.026s 2m00.679s
- Callum Ilott Carlin Dallara/Volkswagen 36m28.440s Retirement
- Yu Kanamaru Carlin Dallara/Volkswagen 45m44.286s Retirement
- Daniel Juncadella Fortec Motorsports Dallara/Mercedes - Withdrawn
- Gustavo Menezes Carlin Dallara/Volkswagen - Retirement
- Ryan Tveter Team West-Tec F3 Dallara/Mercedes - Retirement
- Mitsunori Takaboshi B-MAX Racing Team Dallara/Toyota - Retirement

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