Sebastian Wheldon took pole position for the FIA Formula 4 World Cup qualifying race at the Guia Circuit on Saturday ahead of Kean Nakamura-Berta and Emanuele Olivieri in a qualifying session interrupted multiple times by red flags. Feeder Series was in the paddock to review Friday’s events at the inaugural F4 World Cup in Macau and hear from several of the protagonists. 

By Kaylene Lau

Wheldon topped qualifying after having been fastest in the free practice session in the morning, which was frequently interrupted with red flags.

The session’s first stoppage came only 10 minutes in, when Gino Trappa hit the barriers at Lisboa. Not long after its resumption, Emily Cotty also hit the barriers near Moorish while on an outlap, bringing the session to a halt again.

By the time the track was cleared, drivers only had 14 minutes on the clock to familiarise themselves with the circuit before qualifying later in the day. 

Wheldon set the fastest lap of the free practice session just before the chequered flag with a time of 2:24.323. Nakamura-Berta’s time of 2:25.094 was not enough to surpass Wheldon’s but was good for second, while Olivieri completed the top three with a time only 0.020s ahead of Jules Roussel in fourth.

In the qualifying session later in the day, Fionn McLaughlin was the first driver to set a fast lap. Having failed to put a time on the board in both free practice sessions because of mechanical issues, McLaughlin switched to the unused chassis originally meant for Brazilian F4 driver Ethan Nobels, who withdrew from the race to recover from his crash at Interlagos last weekend.

Eleven minutes into the session, Rintaro Sato was the fastest with a lap time of 2:25.204, only 0.052s ahead of Roussel. Roussel later improved to a time of 2:24.753. 

With 26 minutes to go in the session, Alexandre Munoz had set an absolute best time in the first three sectors but failed to complete the fourth sector after he hit the barriers at Police, bringing out the red flags. McLaughlin, running in 11th, bailed on a flying lap just before the session came to a halt. The Irishman was later investigated for speeding in the pit lane. 

Rayan Caretti, who was running in eighth, also hit the barriers at the Solitude Esses. His mechanics repaired his car enough for him to go back out, but his time on track did not lats long. His best time, a 2:25.805, was deleted after he hit the barriers again at Lisboa to bring out the second red flag of the session with 20:18 remaining.

After the session resumed, Nakamura-Berta set a time of 2:24.538 to top the timesheets. Wheldon then went fastest with 12 minutes left on the clock with 2:24.148, a time that would eventually grant him pole position. Thomas Bearman also jumped to third with a 2:24.545, with personal bests in sectors two to five, though Olivieri snatched it away from Bearman not long after with a time of 2:24.364. Nakamura-Berta likewise improved to a 2:24.284.

Macanese driver Tiago Rodrigues, who had raced around the Guia Circuit in the FR World Cup last year and in the invitational F4 SEA round in 2023, set a time of 2:24.703, putting him fifth. His return, however, didn’t go entirely smoothly.

With nine minutes to go in the session, he was just ahead of Roussel, who profited from a slipstream off him to set the fastest opening sector of the session. The Frenchman drew alongside into Turn 3 on the inside but made contact with Rodrigues, sending him into the barriers. That incident, coupled with Trappa’s spin and collision with the barriers at Turn 15, brought out the red flag for the third time with nine minutes remaining.

Another red flag after the restart prevented anyone from challenging Wheldon for pole. Sato heavily crashed into the barriers at Fisherman’s Bend, and with 3:39 remaining, the session was not resumed.

”Being crashed into, I’m not really that mad, because I’m really happy after six months of not being in a car,” Rodrigues told Feeder Series in the paddock. “Macau is a really scary track. The first session I was actually thinking to myself, ‘Should I actually be doing this after six months of not driving?’” 

Rodrigues, the 2023 Chinese F4 champion, competed in the full F4 Middle East season in the winter but has not raced full-time since, making only a guest entry in Chinese F4’s Zhuhai round last month.

“We got invited, and it’s not as expensive as other races, so my dad was like ‘Sure, why not’. He was like ‘Do you want to do it?’, and I kind of thought twice because I did six months in Portugal where I don’t even have a sim,” said Rodrigues, who began electrical engineering studies at university in Portugal earlier this year. “When I got back into my sim here in Macau, it felt strange. I wasn’t driving as well as before. But so far so good, and I’m trying to get closer to the limit.” 

Roussel was given a three-place grid penalty for the incident, meaning he will start ninth on Saturday. He said that in the race, he would ‘try to be very good in sector two and three’, corresponding to the circuit’s twistiest sections.

“It’s quite 50/50,” he told Feeder Series about the incident. “When I started, I was already in the middle of the pack, so I have maybe not one lap without impeding. It’s quite complicated to improve after, and quite some part of the quali, we [were] not improving, but the pace was there.”

With Roussel’s penalty, McLaughlin, Sato and Ary Bansal all moved up a place on the grid for Saturday. Simon Zhang rounded out the top 10 of the session.

While the order of cars in the paddock when the green flag flies follows the finishing order of practice one, drivers’ order in pit lane is different and not systematised. On pit lane, Nakamura-Berta and Olivieri, the top two in Thursday’s practice session, were second and third from the front in the order, while Wheldon, who finished that session fifth, lined up near the back. 

“Certainly my position was quite terrible,” Wheldon told Feeder Series in the post-session press conference. “I don’t think it could have gotten any worse. Being one of the last cars, you have to space yourself out and see who’s in front of you and also see who’s behind you so you can set the lap.” 

Nakamura-Berta said he experienced ‘the opposite’. 

“Starting so far in front, it’s quite easy to space yourself out, but then obviously you don’t have the benefit of any slipstream on your lap,” he said. “It also doesn’t mean you get any traffic, but on that one push lap you need, you’re always going to be lacking a bit in sector one.”

Olivieri, who is third in the pit lane order, agreed with Nakamura-Berta, saying that being near the front was ‘quite lucky’. 

Saturday’s qualifying race for the F4 World Cup will take place at 11:40 local time.

Additional reporting by Michael McClure

Header photo credit: Macau Grand Prix Organizing Committee