The first day of the 71st Macau Grand Prix has kicked off, despite typhoon signal no. 3 being in force as a result of Tropical Cyclone Toraji, which was situated approximately 120 kilometres south of the city as of 4 pm.
The event began at 6 am with the president of the Macau Grand Prix Organising Committee, Ao Ieong U, inspecting the Guia Circuit alongside representatives from the Federation International de I’Automobile (FIA) and track personnel.
According to various media reports, the poor weather resulted in the cancellation of the first free practice for the 56th Macau Motorcycle Grand Prix, which was scheduled to take place between 7:45 am and 8:30 am. The session has since been rescheduled for 7:45 am tomorrow.
Subsequent free practice sessions, for events such as the FIA FR World Cup, the Kumho FIA TCR Tour Event of Macao, the FIA GT World Cup and the Greater Bay Area GT Cup (GT4), were unaffected.
Nonetheless, the FIA FR World Cup free practice session ended prematurely with only around 2 minutes left on the clock, after a second accident occurred towards the end, which resulted in the organisers dropping a red flag. Oliver Goethe of Germany earned the top ranking for the training event, with a time of 2:41.270.
[See more: The Macau Grand Prix will continue in the event of a no. 3 typhoon signal]
For the TCR practice session, Argentina’s Franco Girolami came out on top, with a time of 2:48.761. He was followed by Sweden’s Thed Björk, who had a time of 2:48.936, and Uruguay’s Santiago Urrutia, whose time was 2:50.545.
The FIA GT World Cup practice, meanwhile, saw Edoardo Mortara of Switzerland top the ranking, while the practice for the Greater Bay Area GT Cup (G4) had China’s Han Lichao in first place.
The rainy weather will add pressure to the drivers on the already tricky Guia Circuit. Hong Kong racer Andy Yan told TDM that he has had very little opportunity to race in the rain in Macao since he first started participating in the competition in 2003. He mentioned that he would adopt a conservative approach in his first practice race as a result of the poor weather.
The Sports Bureau announced yesterday that it would continue to hold the Grand Prix as scheduled during typhoon signal no. 3.
In the event that a signal no. 8 is issued, the Grand Prix is expected to be suspended, but Macao’s weather forecaster says there is only a “relatively low to medium” chance of the higher signal being hoisted.
