Motorsports | Local racers find podium finishes in Macau GP qualifiers

The Macau Grand Prix qualification races began last weekend with a number of local drivers taking podium finishes at the first event of the 2019 Macao Racing Festival, held at the Guangdong International Circuit (GIC) in the city of Zhaoqing.

The erratic rainfall over the weekend added some challenge for drivers and their teams in the first event, resulting in neither dry, nor wet racing conditions.

The first event included three different racing categories; the 1600cc Turbo class, the above 1950cc class and Greater Bay Area GT cup (AAMC GT Challenge).

Hong Kong drivers were a highlight in the Macau Touring Car Series (MTCS) in their 1.6T cars with Paul Poon scoring very important points in the Macau Grand Prix qualifiers by winning the first race and finishing second in the second race of the weekend.

In the first race, Hong Kong drivers were in the spotlight as they took top three positions of the podium. The race was won by Alexander Fung.

Also scoring very important points in this event was Lo Kai Bong, who finished second in race 1 and third in race 2.

In the AAMC Challenge Above 1950cc Class, Macau’s Kelvin Leong won race 1 over Sabino Osorio and Helder Assunção.

In Race 2, the final win went to another local driver, Delfim Mendonça, who has been consistently performing with steady results in the past year. He finished in front of Lam Kam San and Summer Chan, who came in third.

In the inaugural new version of the Greater Bay Area GT Cup for GT4 category cars, the winners’ list was a little more disputed among several drivers.

In this category, the highlight was local driver Kevin Tse who was second in race 1 and first in race 2.

He was the only winner who stood on both podiums during the weekend.  Hong Kong’s Alexander Au won race 1 while Macau’s Martin Sou won in Group A.
In race 2 of this Group A category, the second position went to Kenny Chung and third was Chan Hei.

In the Group B class of this same category, the winners were David Pun (race 1) and Lei Kit Meng (race 2).

Drivers will take their time to adjust their tuning capacities and driving skills in their machines for the second and final weekend of these competitions which will be staged at the GIC circuit on June 21 to 23 for races 3 and 4.