Macau GP 2024

[jonoholland29]

Anyone watching the Macau GP?

It’s being live streamed on YouTube on the FIA’s YouTube channel.

FIA

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It’s Formula Renault qualifying right now. It started at 15:30 local time, was meant to run for 45 mins but it’s 17:10 now and they’ve still got 8 mins to go after 6 red flags!

Timings for the weekend are:
Sat 14:30 (06:30UTC) GT Heat Race
Sat 15:30 (07:30UTC) FR Heat Race
Sun 14:30 (06:30UTC) GT Feature Race
Sun 15:30 (06:30UTC) FR Feature Race

Does the Macau circuit feature in any current computer games?

 

[Scaff]

Does the Macau circuit feature in any current computer games?

Yep, RaceRoom has it as official content and Assetto Corsa has some reasonable mods for it.

 

[jonoholland29]

It was ridiculous. They’ve dropped it from a F3 race to a Formula Renault and the difference in skill is very noticeable.

 

[Jimlaad43]

It was ridiculous. They’ve dropped it from a F3 race to a Formula Renault and the difference in skill is very noticeable.

I'm sorry but this sentence is wrong in so many ways.

The Macau GP is now run under Formula Regional, which is the spiritual successor to F3, rather than the current FIA F3 which is just |GP3 plus. These modern F3 cars are around 10s quicker than the F3 cars of 10 years ago, which turned out to be too fast for Macau, and also went against the philosophy of this event. The modern F3 cars are only run by one Champsionship, whereas Macau was always like a "World Final" of sorts for the F3 championships around the globe. Anyone who ran in an F3 championship could compete, and cars from different European series', American, Asian and Australasian championships would all come together to race as one. Formula Regional is the current series that does this, as a step up from F4 and the step below F3, which is now a World Championship effectively. The cars are smaller and slower, so better suit Macau and have plenty of championships around the world which can all feature in this one final race.

The "difference in skill" is such an odd way to describe this. A big percentage of the racers took part in FIA F3 this year - and a few of them were podium finishers or race winners that caused the Red Flags. The drivers all practiced in soaking wet conditions on a street circuit with many corners and that evolves massively throughout the sessions, let alone weekend. This quali was the first session in the dry, therefore giving the drivers 40 minutes on a rapidly gripping up circuit with notorious bumps and close walls on a track that drivers rarely go to more than twice in their careers, crashes are inevitable. The pressure of having one session to get it right at a place you have to build up to speed is difficult for any driver regardless of speed. Once one red flag happens, the time to get a quick laptime in reduces and pressure goes up. Every red flag makes the next one more likely, and it just bit the drivers today.

"It was ridiculous" does sum up the sessions, but there was a hell of a lot more going on than that headline suggests.