Michael Schumacher led Mika Hakkinen past the old pits for the last time, and the Finn, surfing the crest of a wave after winning the British Formula 3 Championship, was tucked right in the slipstream of the German F3 champion. That, thought the West Surrey Racing team that ran Hakkinen, was surely enough to give him Macau Grand Prix victory.
Back then Macau was very different. The start-finish line was after the Reservoir kink - rather than before, as it is today - and the event was run to an aggregate of a two-heat format. Hakkinen had 2.66 seconds in his pocket - the margin by which he'd beaten Schumacher in the first part. All he had to do was sit right behind the WTS Motorsport man. And off they headed into the kink then known as Yacht Club Bend, now Mandarin Oriental...
"They went out of sight at 'Mandarin'," recalls WSR boss Dick Bennetts, whose team as usual in Macau bore Marlboro Team Theodore branding in deference not only to its drivers' regular tobacco sponsorship, but the Theodore patronage of Macau GP godfather Teddy Yip.