Macau
While Sophia Floersch?s accident in Macau stole the headlines, there was plenty of other racing that topped the bill in the former Portuguese province of China. Most entertaining were the bikes, and few who have ever seen the likes of Michael Rutter at full tilt on a street circuit will quite understand what full commitment looks like, but there was also the local Food4U sponsored touring car race that was both exciting, and frightening looking at the safety cells. And that?s before we get to the aero on each of these cars.
The GT race was, unlike last year, surprisingly well behaved. Saturday?s race saw the Mercedes finish second and third behind Augusto Farfus?s BMW, Mercedes? Maro Engel claiming that the main race was Sunday so there was no point in smashing up his car in the warm up event. Sunday passed similarly without incident, but there was an issue and that was the number of cars on the grid; just 15 started, and they were dominated by Mercedes, Audi, BMW and Porsche. Nissan was represented by three cars, but they were off the pace, mostly due to a set up issue that left them with chronic understeer, but also they were chasing performance to compete with the experienced runners. Stephane Ratel, the man who liaises between the Macau GP organisers and the FIA, made the point; Lamborghini, Honda and McLaren have all come to take part in the World Cup, and none were here in 2018, potentially costing him six entries. Bentley said that it was the right event, wrong...