Street Fighting: Rising to the Challenge of the Macau Grand Prix

A good reputation can be more valuable than money. And while very difficult to get, it can be all too easy to lose.

For up-and-coming racing drivers, the Macau Grand Prix has thrived over the years as the place to seal your reputation as a potential star of the future. And yet, at the same time, it has also won its spurs as the place to lose it.

With the tight and twisty Guia circuit proving to be, perhaps, the ultimate challenge outside of Formula One, the attraction of the event is easy to understand. To win at Macau, you have to be very good.

When you add to the mix a victory roster that includes Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher and David Coulthard, it is no wonder that so many young drivers want to follow in their footsteps and make a name for themselves too.

If there were any doubts about how much a good performance at Macau can actually do for a driver, then they would be wiped away by one look at the way Robert Kubica's last 12 months have panned out.

This time last year Kubica, uncertain about his racing future, had agreed to a last-minute deal to return to Macau with Carlin Motorsport, despite having moved up the ladder and clinching the World Series by Renault title.

He failed to win at Macau but his stirring performance against eventual winner Lucas di Grassi left an onlooking BMW motorsport director Mario Theissen deeply impressed.

Theissen was visiting Macau for the first time to oversee BMW's efforts in the World Touring Car Championship finale. Keeping a close eye on the F3 race, he could not but help see how strong and determined Kubica was and, aware that he needed a third driver, the young Pole was put on the shortlist.

When Kubica then impressed in a maiden F1 test for Renault at Barcelona, and stalled on making any firm commitment to stick with the French car manufacturer, Theissen swooped and signed Kubica for his own team. The rest is, as they say, history.

Robert Kubica (Carlin Dallara-Mugen/Honda) 2005 Macau Grand Prix © LAT

Looking back on the situation, Theissen admits that Macau had given him the chance to see Kubica close up - something that had not been possible during the season.

"I always try and watch all the F3 Euro Series races on television and some of them live, because the German Formula BMW Championship runs with DTM," says Theissen.

"But actually Macau was the first time I saw Robert live. I watched him throughout the season on television and I had a lot of information on him, but I had never seen him in action before. So Macau was the perfect place to watch him.

"Drivers can suffer a lot of bad luck at Macau, so it's important to not just look at the race result. You need to look at how he worked through the weekend, how he was able to adapt to special circumstances, and how competitive he was."

As a tight street circuit, Macau leaves little room for error, and luck can play a big role in what happens. And it is running the gauntlet of fortune, where someone else's error can wreck your weekend, that makes Macau, like Monaco, more of a lottery than other events.

Those moments of madness or misfortune, that leave drivers in the wall and out of the event rather than on top of the victory rostrum, can have a profound effect on a driver's future career. Remember Loic Duval having a dream chance with ASM last year only to ruin it all with a jump-start from pole in the second race? And who can forget the torture of James Courtney in 2003, who suffered a late-race puncture after dominating most of the weekend? Would their careers be different now if they had triumphed?

It is the risk of damaging your reputation that has often been too much for drivers - who feel that messing up Macau could hurt them despite any success they may have earlier in the season.

Such a view has not been adopted by any big names this year, though. For the first time in several seasons, all the major national Formula Three champions have come together to deliver an exceptionally strong field. Picking out a favourite is proving too difficult - a sure sign that this weekend is going to be very close, and very spectacular.

Team boss Trevor Carlin, who has just added BMW-Sauber test driver Sebastian Vettel to his squad for this weekend, claims he is always surprised when drivers opt not to race at Macau.

Narain Karthikeyan and Trevor Carlin at the 2000 Macau Grand Prix © LAT

"At the end of the day, it is their job," he says. "They are racing drivers, and they should drive racing cars as often as possible. With this type of circuit, there should be more interest in them doing it, because it prepares them so much for the future.

"Most race circuits these days are quite sanitised, super safe places where people do a lot of testing and they are very familiar with it. This circuit is super demanding. There is no other track like it in the world, it has a big twisty section and the high speed straight, so you run the car in low downforce, which makes it difficult to get around the twisty part.

"It is a real challenge and the good drivers are confident in their ability to come here and do a good job. The real racers would not miss it for the world."

Last season, British F3 champion Alvaro Parente and F3 Euro Series winner Lewis Hamilton both skipped Macau. The expense of going, at a time when they were focused on their 2006 efforts, proved too much - especially because both felt that they had nothing further to gain by winning.

McLaren F1 CEO Martin Whitmarsh is one man who acknowledges the risk factor of going to Macau - having decided last year that protege Hamilton was better off missing the race and keeping his reputation intact after a dominant season in the F3 Euro Series.

"Macau is an opportunity for a driver who perhaps has not had a good season to go and rescue a reputation," says Whitmarsh. "It was good in that way from time to time, for someone to pop up and be a Macau winner, because a Macau winner has credibility and credence, so it was useful for that.

"But we took the view last year that going there was spending money for no particular purpose, because Lewis had achieved and demonstrated all that he needed to. He had also been there before, and enjoyed it, and if you are at the top of something, the only way is down.

"There is a bit more of a lottery element to any street race. It is an event where you can quite easily be taken out on the first lap, so you can spend a lot of money and go there and be beaten by someone clipping your rear wheel at the first corner."

Whitmarsh's view is not universally shared. This season, the champions from Britain (Mike Conway), Euro Series (Paul di Resta), Japan (Adrian Sutil) and Italy (Mauro Massironi) have all decided to race. Even F1 test drivers Sebastian Vettel and Kazuki Nakajima are still gunning for victory despite having their 2007 plans sorted. All of them agree that there is nothing to be afraid of - even if there can only be one winner.

Lewis Hamilton (Manor Dallara-Mercedes) 2004 Macau Grand Prix © LAT

Di Resta, who drives for the crack ASM team, said: "I have got nothing to prove to anybody. I have done everything I needed to do this year. To come here is an experience in itself.

"I have never been to Hong Kong or Macau before, and I think racing on a street circuit will do me good in the future. I just want to learn about the way things work. It is another challenge that I have got to step up to, and whether it works out or not, I don't see it as too much of a problem. We are here to do the business, whichever way it goes, so let's just wait and see."

Sutil adds: "I decided in the beginning of the year to come here with TOM'S, and I don't think it is the wrong decision or something. If you are strong, you should come here and show what you can do. Everybody knows who are the best teams and if you can win with this team or not, but it is a great opportunity for every driver. Once in your career you should do Macau."

Carlin is also relishing working with Vettel, who has joined him after racing for ASM in the F3 Euro Series.

"It is brilliant because he is a proper driver," beams Carlin. "He wants to come here, wants to do well, puts pressure on us to give him a good car. But the reason I wanted him was because I believe he is the best chance we have to win the race. So no pressure..."

There is more to Macau than just making a name for yourself, though. Williams driver Alexander Wurz, who raced at Macau in 1994 and 1995, thinks that Macau can be a vital part of the learning process for a driver on his way up the motor racing ladder.

"Macau is good, huh?" he smiles. "Macau is fantastic because you have to be quite strong in your head but relaxed. It is the first time as a driver that you are a little bit of a star, because people go there and ask for autographs from the F3 drivers, interview you and there is TV. It is much bigger than anywhere else. The expectations are high, the circuit is changing, the circuit is very tough, very tricky, and so it is a good race.

"As a driver, you have to go there. Even if you have a rubbish weekend - and there are many examples of people who did nothing in Macau but are still great F1 drivers - it is still damn cool.

"It is an awesome track, and it is my favourite track at the end of the day in F3. I loved it. When it is rubbering in and you get confident and you fly through the streets, it is awesome. You get the car control and what you learn there in one weekend, in terms of how to control the car, how to handle everything, you don't learn in an entire season. It is really important."

Sebastian Vettel, Lucas di Grassi and Robert Kubica on the 2005 Macau GP podium © LAT

Carlin thinks that the experience of racing at Macau provides a driver with an experience that comes as near as possible to being what F1 feels like.

"This event is as close to a real Grand Prix as you can get. The buzz on the grid is exactly the same as at a Grand Prix, having done a little bit of F1 myself. The feeling I get here is the same as in F1. The media attention, the crowd...it is fantastic."

Even when big names have skipped Macau, the event has still produced great racing and a more than worthy winner. This season, with such a strong line-up, it could well deliver a race and a winner as good as Senna in 1983 or Schumacher in 1990.

Should it do so, that will only serve to enhance Macau's reputation further as the must-win race for anyone who wants to make it in the sport.