Edoardo Mortara
The Macau Grand Prix Museum yesterday inaugurated eight new wax figures by Madame Tussauds, adding to the other racing memorabilia on display at the museum and concluding the full revamp of the space.
The announcement was made at a ceremony that included the presence of the Chief Executive, Ho Iat Seng, and other government officials. Work on the figures had commenced in 2018 but, due to the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions, they can only now could be added to the museum collection.
In the ceremony held yesterday afternoon were also two of the featured racers, Michael Rutter and Rob Huff, invited to the occasion by the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO).
They will be joining John Macdonald, Ron Haslam, Ayrton Senna, Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton, and Edoardo Mortara, all immortalized in the local museum.
John MacDonald
In her opening remarks, MGTO’s director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, noted the opportunities that the new figures will bring, especially this when the borders have reopened after the pandemic and the Grand Prix celebrates its 70th anniversary. The director expressed her hopes that the figures will attract more people to Macau and to the museum.
“It will not only make the museum more enchanting but also help continue the Macau Grand Prix’s profound history and culture. It will become one of the attractions drawing visitors from diverse source markets worldwide to Macau,” Senna Fernandes said.
The event also had the presence of BoBo Yu, Head of Sales and Marketing, Hong Kong Cluster, Madame Tussauds Hong Kong, who remarked that this is the first time Madame Tussauds Hong Kong and MGTO has collaborated on a project in Macau, and also the first time that a group of newly cast figures has been presented at the same time.
Lewis Hamilton
On stage, the racers and Yu also had the opportunity to explain the process of making the figures, which required each of them to pose for eight hours at a time, and also undergo many measurements to achieve the final expression to be cast.
Huff noted the professionalism and precision of the team who completed all the remarkably impressive work.
Yu also thanked the racers for their donation of the racing kits adorning the figures, giving the realism that people will observe in the museum.
Rutter’s figure features a celebration pose, holding a champagne bottle, and Yu noted that he was particularly impressed with the level of detail and accuracy.
Michael Rutter (left) and Rob Huff posing with their figures
Senna Fernandes revealed on the sidelines of the event that each figure cost HKD2 million, which includes not only the making and assembling of the figures but also all the costs involved with the rights of use of the image of the people featured, and the weekly maintenance for the figures to keep them in perfect shape.
While the figures of Ayrton Senna, Sebastian Vettel, and Lewis Hamilton are recasts of figures already featured in other Madame Tussauds museums, as the Times reported, the ones now featured at the Macau GP Museum have undergone several updates and improvements, being significantly different from the ones in other museums, as the Times could also observe in loco.
