The introduction of this year’s Macau Challenge Cup, to include a special event from the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia, was initially one of the significant motifs of interest for watching this year’s Grand Prix (GP).
Unfortunately, the event suffered the last-minute setback of insufficient entries, as the Times reported.
With just two weeks until the GP, the Macau Grand Prix Organizing Committee (MGPOC) has had no alternative but to split the two categories in the Macau Touring Car Cup, moving the racers competing with 1950cc and above engine cars to the Challenge Cup to fill the grid.
The group once known as the Road Sport Challenge is taking over the event that has just 17 cars and drivers listed to participate, in a grid almost exclusively comprised of local racers.
The exceptions are the three entries from mainland drivers Hu Heng, Hu Zuo Liang, and Chen Da Xing, who will certainly have a difficult time racing with some of the most experienced racers of the Guia circuit, such as Jerónimo Badaraco, Ng Kin Veng, Eurico de Jesus, Luciano Lameiras and Martin Sou.
Alongside these stalwarts, we must not forget Wong Wan Long and Summer Chan, driving the two Mitsubishi Lancer Evolutions 10 and 9, that were respectively first and second last year.
As in previous editions, to win this race you need a combination of two things. One, a good qualifying time, so you can start at the front of the grid and avoid the middle of the pack where most trouble is likely to happen; and two, a reliable car. We have seen on many occasions that these highly tuned road vehicles often suffer from reliability issues and mechanical problems, which have caused likely winners to lose the race and their comfortable time leading gaps.
With 12 out of 17 cars being Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution models from either the 9 or 10 generations, this race will be as close to a single-maker race as you can get, which may add some interest to a racing class that has seen better days. The Evolution 9 is a car that dates back from 2005, and the tenth, and last, generation of this car was launched in 2007 and has been out of production since early 2017.
Although competitive, fun to drive and to watch racing, the time that has passed since the production models were discontinued also contributes to the general sag in interest in this racing category, indicating the urgent needing for a revamp.
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