It’s less than a month to the Macau Grand Prix – the iconic motorsport event taking place in the Far East that allows some of open-wheel racing’s most promising youngsters to strut their stuff.
Running around the streets of Macau, a Hong Kong-style enclave on the Chinese coast that was formerly Portuguese, it features bike and touring car racing as well as the Formula Three contest that concerns us here.
This year’s event takes place on November 19-22 and the British drivers in the Formula Three race include Sam Bird, driving for ART Grand Prix following a season in F3 Euro Series, plus Max Chilton and Henry Arundel, both driving for Carlin Motorsport after their year in British F3 International
They are joined by fellow British F3 International graduate Wayne Boyd, driving for Hitech Racing, and Alexander Sims, driving for City of Dreams/ Räikkönen Robertson following his season alongside Bird in F3 Euro Series.
British F3 National Class winner Daniel McKenzie, driving for Fortec Motorsport, is also lining up on the grid.
Other competitors include the champions of Japanese F3 and the F3 Euroseries, Marcus Ericsson and Jules Bianchi, who are widely tipped to carry a rivalry all the way to Formula One. British F3 champion Daniel Ricciardo, from Australia, and New Zealand’s Red Bull F1 reserve driver Brendon Hartley represent the Antipodes.
The course is known as one of the world’s most demanding, making Monaco look like it was designed by Hermann Tilke. Well, not quite, but you get the picture. Put the F3 graduates in this environment and – well, put it this way, there’s always plenty of action and incident.
The list of former competitors is like a who’s who of F1 and includes Michael Schumacher, David Coulthard, Mika Häkkinen, Rubens Barrichello, Jacques Villeneuve, Giancarlo Fisichella, Jarno Trulli, Pedro de la Rosa, Alexander Wurz, Nick Heidfeld, Juan Pablo Montoya, Mark Webber, Jenson Button, Sébastien Bourdais, Heikki Kovalainen, Robert Kubica, Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel.
You can learn more about the event, including viewing the entire provisional entry list, on the event website here.