Verschoor provides a new Macau shock
New cars, new teams, revisions to the circuit… But one thing remains unchanged – the ability of the Macau Grand Prix to spring a surprise
The Macau Grand Prix is renowned for creating drama, but last weekend it excelled itself by producing one of the genuine giantkilling stories of the past motorsport decade, as the Dutch combination of Richard Verschoor and MP Motorsport won Formula 3’s biggest race at their first attempt on the Guia track.
The nature of the street circuit means that drivers with bucketloads of commitment, bravery and sheer skill can make the difference by taking big risks, brushing up against the barriers and leaving their braking until the last moment in a bid to defeat allcomers.
Luckily, none of that had altered for
2019 despite heavy changes to the track. With seven improvements to help safety (see panel, p35), there was potential to ruin the charm and adversity this venue offers, and as Autosport conducted its track walk – a tradition started by veteran old-school-f3 Autosport reporter Marcus Simmons – there was genuine worry that this once great event would be a shadow of its former self, sanitised by the ‘fun police’. Quite the opposite was the case, as the FIA and the Macau organisers had improved safety while keeping all there is to love about the fearsome Guia layout.
The changes were required so that the organisers and the FIA could bring the new FIA Formula 3 car to the event in 2019 – because of its higher power-to-weight ratio than the old Dallara machines used here in previous years, an upgraded circuit homologation was needed.
The face of F3 has changed this year.
It’s no longer a category for multiple chassis and engine manufacturers, instead morphing more into what was GP3 and some of its gimmicks for entertainment, such as degrading Pirelli tyres and DRS.
But making the cars equal does have some merit, at least on paper.
In the FIA F3 Championship, the goal of the teams is to run the cars nice and low and drive air over the front end. But
at Macau, that’s tough to do over its aggressive bumps, and that means teams were forced to raise the cars and in turn alter the set-up. A combination of this, and the fact that it was the first time here with the car, shook up the order and gave some of the smaller teams a chance.
It also pushed speeds through the roof, the cars up to four seconds quicker than the record-setting pace from the year before. And with the assistance of DRS – which functioned infrequently due to sensor issues – top speeds were up by around 14mph to 191mph for some drivers. That’s a staggering speed for an F3 car, especially given that it wasn’t even in the proper low-downforce spec used at Monza.
Double Macau Grand Prix winner Dan Ticktum – entering Macau in a bid to secure the first-ever consecutive hat-trick – said it was “dangerous”. The one thing to factor into that is, while the cars are quicker, they also have strengthened chassis and the all-important halo. Most drivers were happy with the new machine and praised it.
Despite that final shake-up of the order, qualifying and the qualification race were more representative of the usual 2019 form. Prema Racing wrapped up the teams’ title with a round to spare this year, and it looked like drivers’ championship runner-up Marcus Armstrong was able to find another gear as he initially had the pole. But after a purple second sector on the next tour, he crashed at Police and spent the rest of the weekend struggling to recover.
Armstrong’s title-winning team-mate and fellow Ferrari Driver Academy ace Robert Shwartzman led the charge instead, while Hitech Grand Prix man Juri Vips – the closest rival to the Prema brigade all season – also starred from the outset.
Vips was his usual fearless self and, with Prema’s advantage seemingly reduced in Macau, the Estonian was loving every minute of the on-track action. He won pole and then, after a first-lap pile-up at Lisboa caused by Logan Sargeant clipping Arjun Maini into a track-narrowing spin, he cruised to victory in the qualification race to start at the front of the Grand Prix.
Where was the drama, the action? The qualification race seemed processional, Vips getting a demon start and managing the gap – and the degrading Pirelli tyres – to easily keep Shwartzman at bay. Was this a sign of things to come? Were we in for that rarity, a processional Macau Grand Prix?
One thing that suggested otherwise was the number of top drivers out of position. Armstrong, Ticktum and HWA’S Jake Hughes (who had topped the first qualifying session on Thursday) were all caught up in the Sargeant-maini aftermath. While it pretty much ensured that Ticktum wouldn’t take his hat-trick and Hughes wouldn’t finally score his first win – or even podium – in Macau, it meant that they would cause sparks as they drove through the field.
Under the radar in the qualification race was Verschoor. He eventually wrestled fourth from Callum Ilott – who starred on his Macau return – and believed a win on Sunday was possible. Maybe if he’d had DRS working, he could have got past Ilott sooner. Verschoor – despite finishing 13th in FIA F3 this year – was oozing confidence and appeared to have a new lease of life.
Sure enough, Verschoor proved it. Vips got a clean getaway and moved into the lead, but it looked like ART Grand Prix’s Renault junior Christian Lundgaard – who’d finished
“Top speeds were up to 191mph for some drivers. That’s a staggering speed for an F3 car”
a solid third in Saturday’s race on his Macau debut – might have the edge. The Dane has struggled with starts all year, but on Sunday he got the best of the lot. The problem was, he became boxed in by Vips and Verschoor – who had slipstreamed past him into the Mandarin kink – and had to lift.
Shwartzman – starting second – didn’t get away so cleanly and, after a strong weekend up until that point, would soon be out. Lundgaard took the inside line at Mandarin, but didn’t see Shwartzman to his left and ran over the Russian’s frontright wing. The flailing appendage then lodged under his car. He pulled slowly into the Lisboa runoff and that was his and Prema’s hopes of a win out of the window.
Vips held the lead, but that’s where the David-versus-goliath battle would begin, with Verschoor moving to the inside to take second and stalk the Red Bull junior.
The irony of this was not lost. Verschoor is an ex-red Bull junior, brought onto the scheme in 2016 during his dominant double-title-winning F4 season, dropped the following year after a disappointing Formula Renault Eurocup campaign.
But thanks to MP boss Sander Dorsman and team owner Henk de Jong giving
Verschoor a favourable deal, he’s driven in GP3, F2 and F3 with the team since then.
Dominant in some lower categories, the team is run on a much smaller budget than some of the others in F3, and its results have been poor. Verschoor’s team-mate, Red Bull junior Liam Lawson, summed up MP’S season: “This year has been pretty difficult. We haven’t fully understood how the car works – we sometimes end up leaving the track just as confused as when we got there.”
With three Macau rookies in MP’S line-up – Verschoor, Lawson and Euroformula Open ace Lukas Dunner – and the team never having been there before, it was always going to be tough. But Verschoor believed his team had found something in the Valencia test two weeks before the event that had made it “easy to go fast”.
That wasn’t immediately apparent in the race as Verschoor ended the first lap 1.8 seconds down. Thankfully for the neutrals wanting to see a proper ding-dong motor race, the safety car came out shortly after. Leonardo Pulcini had nudged the barrier at Lisboa, and then seconds later ART’S Macau-addicted DTM driver Ferdinand Habsburg smashed into the barriers after carrying too much speed at the Esses.
Verschoor prepared for the restart perfectly, and threw his car down the inside at Lisboa for the lead. Could this actually happen? Surely not. Vips just appeared so assured all weekend.
But after a virtual safety car to recover the stricken HWA car of Sophia Florsch, Vips picked up some debris on his tyres, and then for a single lap, just as he looked like he could nudge back in front, his DRS failed him and he ran wide at Lisboa. His Pirellis were now mush.
Vips still closed back in – much to his surprise due to the lack of tyre life – but what was not obvious from the outside is that Verschoor’s steering was damaged. He had to fight for every metre for the remaining laps to seal the deal and, once he had, he just cut a figure like a rabbit in the headlights. Completely in shock and in awe, he extended the post-race press conference because he hadn’t been happy with his initial answer!
Vips was furious that his lack of DRS had
cost him the win after what he described as a “perfect weekend”. He still choked out a “congratulations” to Verschoor after a race that should have been his.
Joining them on the podium was Carlin man Sargeant, who’d escaped without delay from his incident in the Saturday race and looked like he had race-winning pace until the VSC, after which his tyres didn’t come back to him. Given his luck in escaping a penalty for the qualification race gaffe, it was a strong result for him and Carlin, which, much like MP, has struggled to suss the new F3 machine.
Lundgaard tailed off in the second half of the race for fourth, and headed Alessio Lorandi, returning to racing with Trident after a one-year lay off with a thumb injury (see sidebar, left). Ilott took sixth in his Charouz-run Sauber Junior Team car under pressure from Lawson, who drove through from 20th to seventh, and Armstrong, who had started 17th.
But there’s no doubt that the star of the show was Verschoor. He’s now hoping that the victory “opens doors” for his career after two years of relative obscurity. There aren’t many things you can do better in F3 than take a fairytale rookie win in the Macau Grand Prix – the first driver to do so since Keisuke Kunimoto in
2008 – to get people talking.