Dan Ticktum has won the 64th Macau Grand Prix – FIA F3 World Cup held at Guia Circuit. He was fighting for a third place that claimed on the last laps and inherited the win when Sergio Sette Camara and Ferdinand Habsburg, who were fighting for the win, crashed on the last corner. Lando Norris has finished second and Ralf Aron third.
As Callum Ilott had won the qualifying race, he started from Pole, but his lead lasted short as Joel Eriksson took it from him. Marino Sato crashed on the first lap and caused a FYC period.
Green flag waved again on lap 3, and the two drivers that were fighting for the lead, Eriksson and Ilott, collided. The Swedish driver retired, which caused the deployment of the Safety Car, and the British was dropped to the last places.
Once the race got re-started, Sergio Sette Camara was the new leader of the race, followed by Max Günther and Ferdinand Habsburg, who had been fighting each other since the start. On lap 7, team mates Kenta Yamashita and Yuhi Sekiguchi collided. This caused a yellow flag that avoided Lando Norris, the fastest driver at that moment, from passing Habsburg and getting close to the lead.
Günther was being quite slow, and was finally overtaken by Habsburg on lap 11. The Austrian driver was now getting closer to the leader as Günther had to defend from Norris, Dan Ticktum and Ralf Aron, who had improved six places on the first laps, before the Safety Car.
After so many attempts, this group of four drivers were drove four wide into Lisboa corner on lap 14. Ticktum overtook both Norris and Günther and was third. Norris and Aron passed Günther, who was sixth.
Race was far from over and, on the last lap, Habsburg tried an incredible move round the outside of turn 2 to pass Sette Camara, but was unable to complete it. The Austrian didn’t give up and was really close to the Brazilian but, on the last corner, both of them crashed into the wall, despite there was no contact made between them.
With that unbelievable ending, Ticktum won the race closely followed by Norris and Aron. Habsburg was able to cross the line fourth after the crash, but Sette Camara couldn’t. Günther, Pedro Piquet, Sacha Fenestraz, Guanyu Zhou, Tadasuke Makino and Jehan Daruvala complete the Top 10.
With this win, Ticktum has become the youngest winner of the Macau GP, with only 18 years, 5 onths and 9 days. The Red Bull Junior Team member is also the driver who has won the race after starting from the furthest position, eighth.
Results:
1 Ticktum 2 Norris 3 Aron 4 Habsburg 5 Günther 6 Piquet 7 Fenestraz 8 Zhou 9 Makino 10 Daruvala 11 Palou 12 Miyata 13 Sette Camara 14 Tsuboi 15 Ilott 16 Schumacher OUT DeFrancesco, Sekiguchi, Yamashita, Eriksson, Sato
