Red Flag Is Green Light For Formula One

Sydney Morning Herald

Tuesday November 23, 2004

Peter McKay

There were the usual desperate moves, silliness, crashes, safety-car periods and even a red flag, which ended the race prematurely, and out of the chaos emerged France's Alexandre Premat, who triumphed in an incident-filled 51st running of the Macau Grand Prix.

Premat withstood heavy pressure to beat Poland's Robert Kubica and Brazilian Lucas di Grassi and take victory in formula three's glamour event, held on the streets of the raffish former Portuguese enclave on Sunday.

The race is notable for many things, foremost the exhilarating street circuit, a 6.2-kilometre combination of long, super-fast straights along the waterfront and a narrow climb into the residential areas, with sudden blind corners bereft of run-off.

Three sons of guns - offspring of former formula one world champions - had mixed fortunes. Nico Rosberg (son of Keke) led early but clouted the barriers on lap two.

Nelson Piquet jnr (Nelson's teenage son) was forced to start near the rear of the field after crashing out of Saturday's preliminary race, but charged up to 10th on Sunday.

And Australian Christian Jones (son of Alan) got together with Rodolfo Avila, their cars blocking the track and bringing out the safety car. Jones restarted and finished 17th.

Bringing together the cream of national formula three championships from around the globe, the Macau GP is regarded as the unofficial world title, and, for the winner, a springboard into formula one. Michael Schumacher established himself as hot property after his win in 1990.

Australians have won the grand prix four times. First was Kevin Bartlett in 1969. Vern Schuppan triumphed twice, in 1974 and 1976. Thirteen years later David Brabham took a Ralt RT33 to victory. James Courtney looked set for a brilliant win two years ago when he got a puncture with six laps remaining.

© 2004 Sydney Morning Herald

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