64th Macau Grand Prix | WTCC return not confirmed

Alvin Chau, Chairman of Suncity Group (left) and Pun Weng Kun

The expected return of the FIA World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) to the Guia Circuit for the 64th edition of the Macau Grand Prix may be in doubt, despite the event already being scheduled at this venue on the WTCC races’ calendar for this year.

The president of the Sports Bureau (ID), Pun Weng Kun, said yesterday that the Macau GP organizers could not confirm that the race will be held at the Guia Circuit, five months prior to the event. “We can only say something after we have a commitment, for the time being we are only committed with Formula 3 and the GT World Cup, we have no commitment with such races to allow them to race in Macau [WTCC].”

“The Macau Grand Prix is a renowned worldwide event and people have a lot of expectations about it, and there are many competitions that want to use this platform. However, our committee needs to consider which are the races that can in fact participate, which are the races that bring benefits to Macau,” said Pun. “Maybe the [WTCC] is one of them. Our committee needs to evaluate if such races are to benefit and have a higher interest to Macau.”

“We need to think [carefully], it is not they [say they] want to come and we [immediately] give the ‘green-light’,” Pun concluded.

Questioned on the fact that the WTCC has already announced this race and have included the event in the official year calendar published on their website, Pun said: “We do not have the right to ask them to change the content of what is published on websites of entities outside Macau. But we do have competence to decide on what is to be on our event program.”

Pun concluded saying, “We are not in contact with [FIA]; only during a preliminary stage were we in contact with them.”

Nevertheless, the official website of the WTCC continues to display the event as scheduled for the weekend of November 17 to 19 this year, the last round before the season finale at Qatar from November 30 to December 1.

Regarding the return to Macau, the event promoter wrote, “After two years away, the world’s fastest international touring car series returns to the Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, restoring the famous Guia Race to its former glory in the process.”

“Previously forming the closing event of the WTCC season, Macau will now host the penultimate weekend of the campaign when Rob Huff will be bidding for a record-extending ninth Macau win,” the promoter added.

The governing body of the motorsport Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) previously announced the Macau event on the sports calendar for 2017, noting at that time that the event was subjected to confirmation from the local organizing body  – namely the National Sport Federation.

The last time the WTCC series held a race in Macau was in 2014. In December that year, the FIA World Motorsport Council announced that the championship would not be returning to Macau in 2015. The race was replaced by the TCR Series in 2015 and 2016, but the contract with TCR was not renewed by the Macau GP organizers.

The Times contacted the organizing body of the WTCC for further clarification, but no response was provided before press time.

Local drivers to race together

One of the decisions made by the organizing committee to reduce the number of racing events was to condense two racing categories into just one. The decision applies to the former Touring Car Cup and Road Sport Challenge categories, which will now be combined. These two categories previously have had grid positions mostly occupied by Macau and Hong Kong racers. This will see the number of available slots from around 30 for the Touring Car Cup and around 40 for the Road Sport Challenge reduced to a total of about 40 for both categories. This decision does not conform to the opinion of local racers that feel their path to the Guia Circuit is becoming more and more difficult. The Times confirmed with some local racers that the measure has already led to their decision to quit the race. Commenting on the topic, Pun Weng Kun said, “we merged some races in order to have a better organization. The grand prix is a high-level event and only high-level drivers can participate. The drivers understand that they need to reach a certain level to be able to           participate.”

Event retains title sponsors

At a press conference held yesterday at the Macau Science Center, it was announced that the 64th edition of the Macau Grand Prix would take place with the same title sponsors as in the previous edition. Therefore, the main event sponsors will continue to be, for the fourth consecutive year, Suncity Group, which contributed the amount of MOP20 million this year.

The sponsorship of the main race events will also continue as before. Sociedade de Jogos de Macau (SJM) will again sponsor the Macau GT Cup and the Companhia de Telecomunicações de Macau (CTM) will also continue to sponsor the Macau Touring Car Cup. During the event, the title sponsor agreements were signed by representatives of SJM and CTM.

In the opening speech, Pun Weng Kun, president of the Sports Bureau (ID) mentioned that the committee is once more committed to continue improving entrance and exit amenities, in conjunction with the temporary traffic measures to “further facilitate the daily lives of residents and visitors.”

Pun added, “the works on the roads will all be performed [earlier] during the summer holidays to put less pressure on the students and to [reduce the impact on] the population.”

He also highlighted that the 2017 edition of the event will continue to feature the two World Cup events, the F3 World Cup (held for the second time) and the GT World Cup, which this year reaches its third edition.

Pun mentioned that the races would be organized under a similar budget to last year.