Felix Rosenqvist provisionally on front row

First qualifying for the Macau Grand Prix turned into a very close battle: with an advantage of only 0,02 seconds, António Félix da Costa (Carlin, 2:13.400 minutes) beat his main rival Felix Rosenqvist (Mücke Motorsport, 2:13.420 minutes). At the 6.12 kilometres long street circuit in the former Portuguese colony, the Swede was the best-placed driver from the ranks of the Formula 3 Euro Series, which brought a total of five drivers into the top ten.

Euro Series drivers Carlos Sainz (Carlin, 2:13.421 minutes) in third place, Daniel Juncadella (Prema Powerteam, 2:13.800 minutes) in fifth, Raffaele Marciello (Prema Powerteam, 2:14.266 minutes) in eighth and Pascal Wehrlein (Mücke Motorsport, 2:14.397 minutes), who was tenth, also made it into the top ten.

Qualifying had to be interrupted for a few minutes following a collision by Andrea Roda (Jo Zeller Racing, 2:18.140 minutes) in the closing stages. The two drivers of the Van Amersfoort team, Dennis van de Laar (2:19.335 minutes) and Lucas Auer (2:16.845 minutes) had also run into the barriers before that. For them, as well as for Roda, qualifying was over.

Felix Rosenqvist (Mücke Motorsport): “With my first set of tyres, I was third, which was actually quite good. In my second attempt with fresh tyres, I got a good slipstream at the start, but I made many little mistakes in the second sector and therefore I already wanted to abort this attempt. Fortunately, however, I continued to attack and I was happy in hindsight, because this turned out to be my fastest lap. Basically, we are in contention for pole position here, but in Macau, the starting grid position isn’t that important. When you are on one of the first four rows, it is normally okay.”

Carlos Sainz (Carlin): “At the end, I did a very good lap, although the tyres were already quite worn. In qualifying, I slowly worked my way to the limit. At the moment, I am third, which in Macau is sometimes even better than being on pole position.”