The Macau GP's greatest moments

The Macau Grand Prix has become famed as the single most prestigious race for up-and-coming Formula 1 wannabes in the world. But, after an unbroken 37-year run as the blue-riband of Formula 3 competition from 1983-2019, this year it is contested by competitors from the Chinese Formula 4 Championship, owing to Macau's very strict quarantine measures in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

But we wanted to wallow in Macau F3 nostalgia, so we dug out a feature that ran in Autosport in November 2002 celebrating some of the more dramatic Macau GPs, and updated it with happenings from the Guia circuit over the past 17 runnings since then.

1983 - Sick Senna wins first F3 race

For around a decade, the Macau GP had been run for Formula Atlantic cars, but a change was needed. Plans to run the race for Formula 2 came to nothing, so F3 was chosen instead.

A good field - including British champion Ayrton Senna, his closest rival Martin Brundle and European champ Pierluigi Martini - was attracted. Senna arrived tired, and only just put his West Surrey Racing Ralt on pole after crashing in qualifying.

"[Senna] missed our briefing on Saturday lunchtime and was not a well man. He did the job in heat one, then had a sleep and did it again later" Dick Bennetts

WSR boss Dick Bennetts remembers: "He'd arrived the night before from Paul Ricard. He'd been testing for the Brabham Formula 1 team and got straight on the plane to Hong Kong. He was knackered."

But Senna dominated the two heats, opening up a 2.5-second gap on the first lap of each, despite being led astray on Friday night (Saturday was then a day of inactivity for F3 in Macau).

"Someone laced his drink," says Bennetts. "He missed our briefing on Saturday lunchtime and was not a well man. He did the job in heat one, then had a sleep and did it again later."

1987 - Hungover Donnelly prevails amid typhoon

This was the first of two occasions on which the Macau GP has been plagued by a typhoon. It meant that the event was to be decided over one race, with the second qualifying session axed.

That meant that the drivers who had already been to Macau were at even more of an advantage. Martin Donnelly had gone in 1986, but "shunted at Fisherman's Bend twice. You could take it in a higher or lower gear - of course being extra brave I tried it in the higher."

Donnelly didn't know that second qualifying would fall prey to the weather, otherwise he surely wouldn't have gone out on the razz in Hong Kong (immediately after checking into his hotel) with Julian Bailey and Thomas Danielsson. Even so, he did a stunning job to plant his Intersport Racing Ralt on pole.

"Then I got out of the car, ran down to the control tower, into the toilets which were underneath it and threw up," he recalls. "I think they'd spiked my drink."

Hmmm... that old chestnut again. But, as with Senna, it ended with a brilliant win.

1990 - Schumacher versus Hakkinen

This race is famous as the one in which Michael Schumacher pressurised Mika Hakkinen into a mistake on the last lap, an error that gave Schumacher the honours in his WTS Reynard and left the Finn to walk home from his crashed WSR Ralt.

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Such was the quality that future Monaco Grand Prix winner Olivier Panis qualified 25th and finished 12th, out of 13 survivors

But what about the rest of the field? Mika Salo and Eddie Irvine completed the podium behind Schumacher, with future touring car superstars Laurent Aiello and Rickard Rydell next up and Alex Zanardi in seventh. Heinz-Harald Frentzen, like Irvine, stepped back from Formula 3000. And then there was Olivier Panis - such was the quality that the future Monaco Grand Prix winner qualified 25th and finished 12th, out of 13 survivors.

Bennetts, who ran Hakkinen and Irvine, remembers: "At the time, you're locked in to doing the best job you can. It's not until later that you look back and think, 'Jeez - look at those guys on the grid'.

"Mika slowed down on the last lap of heat one and cut his advantage over Schumacher for heat two. I said, 'Why did you do that?' He said, 'I had a big lead'. I then had to explain the aggregate system very carefully..."

1997 - Flying, surviving, and winning

This was one of the most bizarre ones. Tom Coronel was leading the race from Max Angelelli and Soheil Ayari when the safety car appeared.

Angelelli, by this time a Macau veteran (he was there in the classic 1990 race), had only been drafted into the Opel Team BSR line-up when the team's German champion, Nick Heidfeld, was taken ill with food poisoning.

At the restart, Coronel took the kink after the pits way too fast on cold tyres and hit the barriers. Angelelli slowed and was struck by Ayari, who flew through the air for 100 metres at 45 degrees. Angelelli then stopped his damaged car at the next corner and succeeded in getting the race brought to a halt.

Amazingly, Graff Racing repaired Ayari's Dallara and he won the restart, as well as the second part, to take victory from team-mate Patrice Gay. Angelelli was excluded for his escapade, but his major role was to give Ayari the reprieve he needed.

"I was thinking, 'Shit, my race is over'," says Ayari. "We were by far the quickest that weekend, but so many things happened. I was just lining up to overtake Max at the end of the straight, but when he braked for Tom it was too late for me."

2000 - Carlin's favourites mess it up

Takuma Sato was the driver on a roll, the late season form man in British F3 and the hot favourite for Macau. Narain Karthikeyan was the returning prodigal son, alongside Sato at Carlin Motorsport after a season with Stewart Racing.

They dominated qualifying, and agreed that whoever led out of the first corner would stay ahead. Karthikeyan got the best start, but the desperate Sato slipstreamed him into Lisboa. He went in too fast, and understeered into the wall and out of contention.

"You can look back and laugh, but I was suicidal at the time - and homicidal" Trevor Carlin

Karthikeyan now had a strong lead but, after a few laps, he snagged the throttle when he was braking for a corner and plunged into the barriers. Andre Couto was on hand to win.

"It's pretty hard to replicate that," says Trevor Carlin. "They were on the front row for the first heat, and on the back row for the second. You can look back and laugh, but I was suicidal at the time - and homicidal. Luckily for Narain, I had time to cool down because he'd crashed so far away. With Taku, I just put my arm around him and said, 'There's always next year'."

There was too, for Sato was back to dominate in 2001. But, had he won Macau in 2000, maybe he would have felt that he couldn't return for another year in F3. "That's very true," says Carlin. "It was bad that we didn't win it, but it rolled us and him nicely into 2001."

2004 - Hamilton crashes with Rosberg

"You couldn't ask for a better team than that - it was almost a nailed-on victory," says John Booth, then boss of the Manor Motorsport team that took Lewis Hamilton and Robert Kubica to the Far East. But a collision between Hamilton and Nico Rosberg - stop us if you've heard that one before - turned the event on its head.

Kubica, who'd spent the 2004 Euro Series season with Mucke Motorsport, got the better of Hamilton in qualifying. "Lewis would go quickest by a couple of seconds on his first lap of every session, and Robert would take three or four laps to match it, but they'd be a second clear of the rest," says Booth. "But at that time, Lewis wanted to go faster than the car wanted to..."

Macau had dropped its two-part aggregate system for this year, with the first race renamed the 'qualification race' and setting the grid for the final. Hamilton bravely sailed around the outside of Kubica at the Mandarin kink, sideways, as he forged into a lead he would not lose, while Rosberg would start the final alongside him on the front row.

Rosberg got the jump at the start but, as they approached Lisboa on the second lap, he got distracted by Hamilton behind and missed his braking point, while Hamilton likewise got distracted by Rosberg's error, and drove into the back of him as they glided gently into the Lisboa barrier.

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Alexandre Premat was now leading from Kubica, but the Pole couldn't get his restarts right under the inevitable safety cars. Even though Premat was hobbled by damage inflicted against a wall, he held on to win. "I remember it well because that's what won us the race with Lucas di Grassi the following year [when the Brazilian jumped Kubica, now with Carlin Motorsport, on a restart]," recalls Booth. "It was bloody frustrating, I can tell you."

And how did Hamilton react? "I remember us having a good night out after the race, so it can't have affected him that much! He knew he should have won it, he knew he was fastest, so at least he could take that away with him."

2006 - From seventh to first, in one corner

When Mike Conway drove from 11th to seventh in the 2006 qualification race with the Raikkonen Robertson Racing team founded the year before by ex-Carlin engineer Anthony 'Boyo' Hieatt, Kimi Raikkonen, and the Finn's managers Dave and Steve Robertson, Hieatt wandered over to his newly crowned British F3 champion and said: "'We can bloody win this,' but I didn't think we'd win it on lap one!"

The reason for Hieatt's confidence was that Conway had a fresh set of tyres for the final, unlike the six who would start ahead of him, and that was because he'd shunted early in second qualifying. "Mike went purple, purple in the first two sectors, and his engineer James Robinson said, 'Make this count'," recalls Hieatt, "and then he hit the wall at the last corner and tore the gearbox off. Dave and Steve Robbo were about to come out to Macau, but decided there was no point going if we weren't going to win it."

"It's still my best ever win in motor racing. I don't give a stuff what anyone else tells me about motor racing: Macau is the hardest race and the only one I've ever wanted to win" Anthony 'Boyo' Hieatt

Conway got a good draft off the start and was on the inside line into Lisboa, and up into fourth place. He could hardly believe it when an out-of-control Kamui Kobayashi smoked down the inside of leader Marko Asmer, and the almost-as-out-of-control Paul di Resta squirmed into the back of Kobayashi - poor old Asmer was left marooned on the outside line as the future F1 drivers ran into the escape road, and Conway was through.

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Despite contact with the wall that bent a trackrod and knocked the steering out of alignment, Conway remained relatively untroubled to trounce a field that also included Sebastian Vettel, Romain Grosjean and Sebastien Buemi. "I think that qualifying shunt enabled him to win because of the tyres," says Hieatt. "It's funny how the stars align and the gods were smiling on us that day. It's still my best ever win in motor racing. I don't give a stuff what anyone else tells me about motor racing: Macau is the hardest race and the only one I've ever wanted to win.

"I spoke to Marko Asmer recently and he's still sore about it!"

2011 - From 14th to first, in two races

This should have been a contest between Roberto Merhi and Marco Wittmann, first and second respectively in that year's F3 Euro Series, but it was Merhi's Prema Powerteam stablemate Daniel Juncadella who stole the show - after qualifying 14th.

Rain on the first day of qualifying meant Friday was the first day of dry action. "I was following Roberto in free practice, and he lost the car and crashed," says Juncadella. "Angelo Rosin [Prema founder] came to the box and said, 'Did you see what he did? You should take it easy, it's only practice.' So I go out and two laps later I crash... The car was ready one minute before qualifying, and I think it was a bit upside-down."

So was the grid, such was the proliferation of penalties handed out. Juncadella was among them, but his penalty was applied after most of the others, so he made a net gain of three places to 11th for the qualification race grid: "That was when I thought, 'This is my lucky charm'."

Juncadella ran used tyres in the quali race, where he finished sixth, so would be the only leading contender on new rubber all-round for the main race. He'd also picked up a trick from watching Saturday afternoon's Motorcycle GP: "Usually in Macau they held the lights forever, but they turned them off for the motorbike race after one second. So I thought I'd be ready with my pre-load procedures pretty early. Roberto didn't do that, and that's why he stalled."

The stationary Merhi caused a pile-up and safety car, and on the restart it was Wittmann leading from GP3 champion Valtteri Bottas (who'd returned to F3 with Double R Racing), Felipe Nasr and Juncadella. "Valtteri was struggling a little bit compared to us, but braking really late everywhere - he was always really good at that," recalls Juncadella. They went three-abreast to Lisboa: "I was sure Valtteri was going to make the corner, but at the exit he had a little snap of oversteer, hit the wall and destroyed the car."

Wittmann's Signature-run car was well in front, but his defeat would be one of the unluckiest in Macau history as a safety car brought Juncadella into play. The Bavarian plummeted to fifth on the restart, and had recovered to third when an almighty shunt for Kevin Magnussen caused the race to finish under caution.

"Funnily enough one of my best friends in racing, Felix Rosenqvist, caused that safety car," laughs Juncadella. "At that time, the draft was massive and I had to lift off to not overtake Marco too early, otherwise he might pass me back. Once I was leading, my legs were shaking the whole lap and I made a couple of mistakes, but luckily I had Yuhi Sekiguchi behind me and he didn't have the pace.

"I was excited about my win, but I felt a little bit bad for Marco. He'd pretty much dominated the weekend and lost everything. You could see by his face he was destroyed."

2017 - Last-corner sensation aids Ticktum

Never had the lead of the Macau Grand Prix changed within sight of the chequered flag until the sensational 2017 race, when Dan Ticktum - on only his third race weekend in an F3 car - took the spoils for Motopark.

As a Red Bull Junior, Ticktum had been racing in the Formula Renault Eurocup, and Macau would be his only F3 outing of the season. He sensationally almost topped qualifying, only to be denied by red flags, so he lined up sixth for the qualification race. After a one-year aberration with Pirellis in 2016, Yokohama was back in its traditional role as the Macau tyre supplier, but had not factored in the increased weight of the 2017 chassis from safety improvements, so many teams found themselves in trouble with rubber. That included Ticktum, who faded to eighth in the qualification race with too aggressive a set-up. But he was confident for the final...

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Ticktum's Motopark team-mate Joel Eriksson crashed out early while duelling for the lead with Prema's newly-appointed Ferrari protege Callum Ilott, and that put another Motopark driver - Sergio Sette Camara, returning to F3 after a season in F2 - into the lead.

"Sergio crashed in both qualifying sessions at Fisherman's Bend," explains Motopark boss Timo Rumpfkeil. "And due to this 'alternative tyre strategy' he was the only guy with a full set for the final. But with the tyres not having any heat cycle put through them before, he picked up a lot a graining and the tyres were literally gone in the last third of the race. He did very well to maintain it as he did."

"Dan had the pace so it was a deserved win, even if it came in an unusual fashion" Timo Rumpfkeil

By contrast, Ticktum was flying. He got up to fifth, then passed Lando Norris and Maxi Guenther in one sensational late-braking move around the outside into Lisboa to lift himself to third, with just under two laps remaining. "That was a mega move, a proper Dan Ticktum move," approves Rumpfkeil.

Far in front of Ticktum were Sette Camara and Ferdinand Habsburg, who were together with one lap to go. "Ferdinand had him," continues Rumpfkeil, "but Sergio braked at Mandarin [to ruin Habsburg's momentum] and avoided the overtake, and I believed it was done at that moment. But Ferdinand did a dummy move at Fisherman's [the penultimate turn], and Sergio responded to that by going mid-track. That gave him a poor run into R Bend."

Habsburg tried an audacious move and, although there was no contact between the two, they each hit the barriers. Habsburg extracted himself, but was beaten to the line by Ticktum, Norris and Ralf Aron.

"In Macau you need to be lucky anyway," concludes Rumpfkeil, "but equally Dan had the pace so it was a deserved win, even if it came in an unusual fashion."