Thursday Practice: BMW dominates

"I felt there was something wrong with the car in the first few laps so I thought it would be better to come into the pits and see if I could get it fixed," said Coronel, who has won the Macau Formula 3 Grand Prix in the past. "The team replaced the battery and when I came out of the pits the car immediately felt better."

German Engstler ended second overall after being pipped to the top spot in the closing seconds of the session. The veteran of Macau had no major complaints about his car but admitted that some work was needed before qualifying.

"I feel good," he said. "I didn't want to push too hard and because of the amount of traffic on the track it wasn't easy for us to overtake. I worked on the set-up after the red flag period and the car was power oversteering in the corners. We will see what I can do in the next session."

Dutchman Duncan Huisman rounded off BMW's domination of the session with the third quickest time after admitting to taking it easy to ensure he did not crash.

Briton Steve Soper in the Peugeot was BMW's closest challenger as he bids for a repeat of his success in 1997 when he claimed pole position, set fastest lap and won both Guia races. He was fourth quickest, but more than one second adrift of Huisman's time.

Briton Simon Harrison was fifth quickest in the Ford Focus, ahead of Markus Gedlich's BMW and C Nattavude's Peugeot. The session was red-flagged with just more than 11 minutes remaining when Kelvin So crashed his Honda into the barriers. The session ended early after another red flag was caused when Tommy Chan crashed his Honda.