Ugo Ugochukwu once again converted pole to win in Sunday’s main race in Macau, leading the race from start to finish. MP’s Oliver Goethe finished second, while Noel León finished third. The race saw five safety car periods after multiple collisions. 

By Kaylene Lau

Sunday’s main race in Macau marked the first time this weekend that the session ran entirely under dry conditions. 

The race began under the safety car for one lap. Ugochukwu got a good start after the safety car was brought in, immediately pulling away from Goethe. Freddie Slater tried to make a move around the outside of León but was unable to overtake the Mexican driver. 

On the first racing lap, James Wharton crashed into the wall at Lisboa, causing a multi-car pileup involving Tiago Rodrigues, Jett Bowling, Kanato Le, Evan Giltaire, Rintaro Sato, Rikuto Kobayashi and Kai Daryanani. Sato tried to make it back to the pits but was unable to and stopped on track. Kobayashi made contact with Daryanani’s car, but was able to put his car in reverse and make it back to the pits as the red flag was called. 

Dino Beganovic was hit in the rear while trying to avoid the pileup, almost making contact with Wharton’s car, but the Swedish driver managed to save it and was able to continue his race. Beganovic’s teammate, Alex Dunne, also made contact with one of the cars involved in the pileup but carried on. 

The race resumed under the safety car with 19 out of 27 drivers still in the race. Ugochukwu maintained his lead at the restart, quickly building a gap between himself and Goethe. 

León also got a good start and started to put pressure on Goethe up ahead. The two were neck and neck heading into Lisboa – but Goethe made the corner just ahead of León. 

In the post-race press conference, Goethe said that the restarts were difficult for him. “Every time I got a bit closer [to Ugochukwu], especially at the end, I was almost close enough to make a move. 

“I was just struggling, mainly with dirty air in the last couple corners and the rest of the track, and yeah, with the tyre warm-up. I feel like my tyres took a bit too long – I was trying to heat them up as much as possible during the safety cars, but yeah, I was struggling to stay really close at the restart.” 

Goethe managed to pull away from León just as a third safety car was deployed as PHM’s Ruiqi Liu made contact with the barriers at Police and stopped on track. The race was green-flagged with nine laps left to go.

Ugochukwu aced another restart when the safety car was called in. After the race, he said that he was fully focused on getting good restarts after each safety car period ended.

“Every safety car restart I had to make sure that I got it perfectly, otherwise with the slipstream, I would’ve had to be really defensive into the first braking zone. So that was my full focus, getting good restarts, and then just nailing the last two corners to give myself a bit of the gap.”

León locked up going into Lisboa, allowing Slater to close the gap. Valerio Rinicella made contact with the wall at the exit of Turn 22, leaving debris on the track. The collision forced him to retire from the race.

León was able to pull away from Slater and put pressure on Goethe up ahead. This allowed Ugochukwu to create a gap from Goethe, putting 1.673s between himself and the German driver.

Mari Boya, who started last on the grid, made his way up to 13th after the restart, eventually finishing ninth on track. However, two drivers ahead of him were disqualified after the race, promoting Boya to a seventh-place finish.

Another safety car was deployed when Sota Ogawa came to a halt on track after hitting the barriers.

Black and orange flags were waved for Théophile Naël during this safety car period, and he headed to the pits for repairs. Naël would go on to finish 14th, but a pitlane infringement would later disqualify him from the race.

The race resumed with two racing laps to go. Jin Nakamura made contact with another car almost immediately after the restart, ending his race. 

Goethe had a good launch off the start and began to chase down Ugochukwu, but the American driver covered him off and remained in the lead as they headed into Lisboa.

Mattia Colnaghi hit the wall, and yellow flags were waved in Turn 22. Slater makes a daring move to overtake León on the last lap at Lisboa, but brakes too late and hits the barriers, bringing out the fifth and final safety car. 

“Yeah, I knew he was going to do something crazy, because obviously it’s the last lap, and it kind of decides after turn three who’s going to be on the podium, you know?” León said on Slater’s move after the race. 

“So yeah, I knew he was going to send it. I left the car to the inside, but half of the car was in the damp condition, so as soon as he sent it, he locked up and went straight. It was a little bit tricky, really stressful moments before going into T3 but we managed to get it.” 

Ugochukwu won the race under the safety car, having led the race from start to finish. Goethe finished in second, and León in third. Enzo Deligny was the highest placed rookie, finishing the race in fourth place. Only 12 drivers out of 27 reached the finish line. 

Following the race, the remaining PHM cars were disqualified due to technical infringements. Matteo De Palo had originally finished fifth, and Rashid Al Dhaheri had finished sixth. 

“Yeah, can’t describe the feeling. Of course, super happy.” Ugochukwu said about his win in the post-race press conference. “[It] was quite a tricky race, was pushing the whole way – but I was confident in the pace. Ever since Q2 we’ve been really quick, of course won the quali race as well.

“But there was still one more thing to do, which is win the main race – which is the most important one, and we managed to do it. So yeah, super happy. [I] can’t thank the R-ace GP team enough, and we had a great weekend.” 

Ugochukwu is only the second American driver in history to win the Macau Grand Prix – with the first being Bob Earl in 1981 when the race was run in the Formula Pacific category. 

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency