First-ever TCR Asia Challenge goes national
Lo Sze Ho (right) and Filipe de Souza
One of the most emblematic events of the local Grand Prix each year is the Guia Race of Macau for touring cars.
The race has been the stage of grand finales of the worldwide touring car championships such as the World Touring Car Cup (WTCC), and subsequently, it’s successor WTCR. This year, and like the last edition, its status will be significantly downgraded, running under the new badge of TCR Asia Challenge.
Contrary to past events when it featured all the world-famous names of touring car racing, this year the race will feature only mainland, Macau, and Hong Kong racers.
Still, among the entry list for this race are some well-known names from the local and regional automobile racing scene.
Among the most featured is Hong Kong’s Lo Sze Ho, who finished third in 2020 and second last year, although a post-race decision from the race stewards eventually stripped him of the podium result.
He is back once again with the Hyundai i30 N TCR, a very successful model in TCR International Series in previous years.
Certain to be battling with Lo to the top posts will be local driver Filipe de Souza. A grand connoisseur of the Guia circuit and with an always well-prepared Audi RS3 LMS TCR, Souza will not want to waste this opportunity to stand on the highest spot of the podium and take the Macau flag to the tallest mast.
He is one of seven local racers joining the 25-strong field that also features other well-known names such as Eurico de Jesus and Billy Lo, the last, who this year, stepped back from the GT cars and returned to the smaller touring cars. Making a similar attempt is the local racer Cheong Chi On who traded his Porsche 911 GT3 Cup for an Audi RS3, aiming to reach a better result this year.
Following two 25-minute free practice sessions today, Friday’s qualifying round will see the fastest 12 cars in the 20-minute qualifying 1 proceed to an extra 10-minute qualifying 2. The grid for Saturday’s race 1 will follow the qualifying order while Sunday’s race 2 will see a grid top 10 of qualifying 2 reversed from P1 to P10, a delight for local revivalist fans of the old days Macau-Hong Kong Interport race.
