Race detailsDate22 November 2020Official name67th Macau Grand Prix – Formula 4 Macau Grand PrixLocationGuia Circuit, MacauCourseTemporary street circuit Distance Qualifying race8 laps, Main race12 laps, Weather Qualifying race: Dry and clearMain race: Dry and clear Qualifying race Smart Life Racing Team Podium First Second Chengdu Tianfu International Circuit Team Third Main race Pole driver Smart Life Racing Team Podium First Second Chengdu Tianfu International Circuit Team Third The 2020 Macau Grand Prix was a Formula 4 (F4) car race that took place on the streets of Macau on 22 November 2020. Because of strict Chinese quarantine regulations brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, the race became an F4 event (rather than Formula Three) for the first time in 37 years and was part of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA)-administered China Formula 4 Championship. The event featured two races: an eight-lap qualifying race to set the grid for the twelve-lap main event. The 2020 Macau Grand Prix was the race's 67th running, the first for F4 cars, and the final meeting of the three-round 2020 F4 Chinese Championship.
Hon Chio Leong of Smart Life Racing Team won the Grand Prix from pole position after winning the qualification race the day before. Leong was the first Macau driver to win the Macau Grand Prix since André Couto in the 2000 race, and the third overall. Wing Chung Chang of the Chengdu Tianfu International Circuit Team finished second, and the podium was completed by the highest-placed Chinese driver, Li Sicheng of the LEO Geeke Team, who finished third. The race results earned He Zijian the Drivers' Championship and the LEO Geeke Team the Teams' Cup.
Background The Macau Grand Prix, Macau's most prestigious international sporting event, is an annual auto race which is considered a stepping stone to higher motor-racing categories such as Formula One. The 2020 Macau Grand Prix was the 67th edition of the event, and its first running under Formula 4 regulations. It was held on the temporary Guia Circuit in the streets of Macau on 22 November 2020 with two preceding days of practice and qualifying.
After the event was held as a non-championship round of the FIA Formula 3 Championship for the first time in 2019, the series was due to return for a second year. With quarantine restrictions introduced due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the plan was abandoned by the Macau Grand Prix Organizing Committee in early September; Euroformula Open and Super Formula Lights cars complying with Formula 3 regulations could not compete in Macau. Since Macau had imposed a 14-day quarantine for overseas visitors, most drivers came from Hong Kong, Macau and China. The 2020 race was part of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA)-administered China Formula 4 Championship, featuring Mygale cars powered by a Geely G-Power JLD-4G20 engine, and was the last of three meetings of the 2020 season.
After the second Zhuhai International Circuit meeting a month earlier, Smart Life Racing Team driver He Zijian led the Drivers' Championship with 169 points (ahead of of FFA Racing and Leo Geeke Team's Li Sicheng in second and third places with 78 points each). Pointer Racing driver was fourth with 75 points, and BlackArts Racing Team competitor Zhu Yuanjie was fifth with 64 points. In the Teams' Cup, Smart Life Racing Team led with 175 points; Leo Geeke Team was second with 119 points, and Black Arts Racing Team was third with 115. FFA Racing and Pointer Racing were in fourth and fifth place with 109 and 75 points, respectively.
Drivers 15 years of age or older were invited to compete by Macau's governing body, the Associação Geral Automóvel de Macau-China, and entries had to be filed between 17 August and 11 September 2020. The entry list of 17 drivers was released on 4 November; it featured local drivers Hon Chio Leong, Wing Chung Chang and Drivers' Championship leader He. Wong moved from Henmax Motorsport to replace Cheng Tao at Leo Geeke Team, and Hong joined Asia Racing Team from FFA Racing. The Grand Prix was originally scheduled to use a rolling start (a change to the series' regulations), but the plan was abandoned on 19 November in favour of a standing start in line with China Formula 4 Championship meetings. Double championship points were awarded for the qualifying and main races.
Practice
There were two 35-minute practice sessions preceding the race on 20 November: one in mid-morning, and the second later that afternoon. The first practice session took place in clear weather. Li Sicheng lapped fastest (with three minutes remaining), with a time of 2 minutes, 34.106 seconds before improving to two minutes, 33.209 seconds on his final lap; he was 1.281 seconds ahead of Chang in second position. Positions three through five were held by He, Chao Yin Wei and Ling Kang. No major incidents occurred during the session. Conditions continued to be clear for the second practice session. Leong set the fastest lap time early in the session at 2 minutes, 33.466 seconds before improving to two minutes, 30.893 seconds midway through. He later improved to two minutes, 30.168 seconds, with ten minutes remaining, to conclude the session fastest. Chang was second-fastest, ahead of Li, Ling and He. Soon after Leong lapped fastest, Zhu collided with the barrier at the right-hand Faraway Hill corner in the track's mountain section, prompting officials to end the session with eight minutes to go.
Qualifying The 20-minute qualifying session on the morning on 21 November determined the qualification race's starting order with each driver's fastest lap times. Drivers who were outside 110 percent of the fastest lap time in their category would not qualify for the event. Conditions were dry for the session. Cheng was the early pacesetter before He led with a 2-minute, 31.970-second time which Leong would improve to 2 minutes, 29.794 seconds. Yellow flags waved during the final minutes of the session, which prevented any improvement from Leong; however, his time was fast enough for pole position. Leong was joined on the grid's front row by Li: the highest-ranked driver eligible to score championship points, since Leong was a previous China Formula 4 Championship winner. Li's time demoted Chang to third place, with Ling moving to fourth in the qualifier's final six minutes; the drivers were separated by less than a second. He qualified fifth, with Kit, Junjie Lu, Yang Liu, Wei and Zong Yi Shang placing seventh through tenth. Yucheng Zeng, Zhu, Jing Zefeng, Weifu Huang, Hui Zheng, Ying Fu Hon and Song Tao Yu, in 11th through 17th place, were the final qualifying drivers. The session was disrupted when Hui lost control of his car on the main straight before Hong ran deep onto the run-off area at the Lisboa turn during his final lap.
Qualifying classification Bold time indicates the faster of the three times that determined the starting order for the qualification race. +Qualifying results Driver Team 1 2 Smart Life Racing Team 2:39.341 2:30.1682:29.794 — 1 2 32 LEO Geeke Team 2:33.209 2:32.6292:30.607 +0.813 2 3 28 Chengdu Tianfu International Circuit Team 2:34.490 2:31.7842:31.026 +1.232 3 4 24 BlackArts Racing Team 2:39.223 2:34.2532:32.010 +2.216 4 5 22 Smart Life Racing Team 2:37.316 2:36.4442:32.943 +3.149 5 6 3 Pointer Racing 2:39.427 2:36.7572:33.498 +3.704 6 7 17 Asia Racing Team 2:40.448 2:40.9702:34.236 +4.442 7 8 8 Yang Liu 2:39.304 2:36.9622:35.950 +6.156 8 9 23 GRID Motorsport 2:39.210 2:38.1392:36.434 +6.640 9 10 33 Team KRC 2:50.597 2:44.5442:39.396 +9.602 10 11 21 Champ Motorsport 2:49.162 2:44.4632:40.173 +10.379 11 12 11 BlackArts Racing Team2:40.493 2:43.943 2:41.246 +10.699 12 13 56 Team KRC 2:49.220 2:42.6072:41.467 +11.673 13 14 48 Leo Geeke Team 2:47.445 2:47.4122:45.485 +15.691 14 15 95 Hui Zheng 3:01.905 2:49.164 +19.370 15 16 61 Henmax Motorsport3:03.202 3:04.520 +33.408 16 17 26 Asia Racing Team 3:34.241 3:29.8733:07.753 +37.959 17 Source:
Qualifying race The eight-lap qualifying race to determine the starting order for the main event began at 14:20 p.m. on 21 November; conditions were dry. Leong maintained his pole position advantage heading into Lisboa corner. Li and Chang were alongside each other on the straight, with Chang overtaking Li at the Mandarin Oriental Bend turn. Liu moved from eighth to fourth during the first lap; Kwan fell from sixth to ninth, and Chao improved from ninth to eighth. Leong held a 1.654-second gap over Chang to start the second lap, as Ling began duelling He for fourth place. Zeng crashed during the second lap in the mountainous area of the circuit and created a brief blockage which necessitated the safety car, since Huang could not restart his vehicle and required assistance from the marshal to push start his car. Jing retired during the safety-car period when he stopped at the Melco hairpin, creating a brief 13-car blockage until his vehicle was removed from the road. The safety car was withdrawn at the end of the fourth lap as Zhu and Hong made contact when racing was about to resume. Hong resumed, as the top section of Zhu's front wing was removed.
Li attempted to overtake Chang towards the Lisboa corner but decided to bow out of the manoeuvre. The safety car was dispatched for the second time on the fifth lap. Hui crashed at high speed into the guardrail on the Solitude Esses, and the resulting cleanup lasted until the seventh lap. The race was restarted on the final lap, with Leong leading Chang. Through the Mandarin Bend Oriental corner, Chang was close behind Leong and attempted to pass him on the outside when Leong turned inside. Chang drew alongside Leong (braking at the Lisboa corner), but Leong kept the lead. On the final lap, Wei, He and Ling were involved in separate crashes into the left-hand barrier. Leong maintained the lead for the remainder of the event to claim victory and pole position for the main race. He was the first Macau driver to win a single-seater motor race in Macau since Cheong Lou Meng finished first in the 2004 Formula Renault undercard round. Chang was 0.867 seconds later in second place, with Li another 1.4 seconds behind in third. Liu was in fourth place, Zong fifth, Hong sixth, Zhu seventh, Lu eighth, Wong ninth and Yingfu tenth; He, Ling and Wei were the final classified finishers. Despite his accident, He took the Drivers' Championship with one race to go.
Qualification race classification +Qualification race result Driver Team Time/Retired 1 2 Hon Chio Leong Smart Life Racing Team 8 29:59.45 1 2 28 Wing Chung Chang Chengdu Tianfu International Circuit Team 8 +0.867 3 3 32 Li Sicheng LEO Geeke Team 8 +2.334 2 4 8 Yang Liu Yang Liu 8 +4.515 8 5 33 Shang Zong Yi Team KRC 8 +13.125 10 6 17 Hong Shi Jie Asia Racing Team 8 +17.490 7 7 11 Yuan Jie Zhu BlackArts Racing Team 8 +20.531 12 8 48 Wai Fu Wong LEO Geeke Team 8 +32.913 14 9 3 Lo Kwan Kit Pointer Racing 8 +51.293 6 10 61 Hon Ying Fu Henmax Motorsport 8 +52.472 16 11 22 He Zijian Smart Life Racing Team 8 +1 Lap 5 12 24 Kang Ling BlackArts Racing Team 8 +1 Lap 4 13 23 Chao Yin Wei GRID Motorsport 8 +1 Lap 9 95 Hui Zheng Hui Zheng 3 +5 Laps 15 21 Yu Cheng Zeng Champ Motorsport 2 +6 Laps 11 56 Jing Ze Feng Team KRC 1 +7 Laps 13 26 Song Tao Yu Asia Racing Team 0 +8 Laps 17 Fastest Lap: Hon Chio Leong, 2:29.494, on Lap 2 Source:
Main race