Jules Roussel won the main race of the inaugural Formula 4 World Cup at Macau on Sunday after starting from second, overhauling polesitter Emanuele Olivieri at the start and prevailing in a battle with French F4 rival Rayan Caretti. Rintaro Sato, who started from 11th, made his way up to third by the end of the 10-lap race to complete the podium. Feeder Series reviews the events of Sunday and spoke to the race’s protagonists. 

By Kaylene Lau and Michael McClure

Olivieri started on pole for the race after having dominated the qualifying race, but Roussel got a better launch off the line and entered the first corner side by side with Olivieri. Roussel managed to take the lead there, while third-place starter Rayan Caretti also passed Olivieri to take second heading into Lisboa. 

Behind them, chaos unfolded. Simon Zhang, who started seventh, slid wide entering Mandarin on the outside and hit the wall with his left-rear tyre. He spun across the track and collected Itsuki Sato, who was spun into the inside wall himself as a result of the impact.

Not long after, Kyuho Lee understeered into the barriers at Lisboa while attempting to pass Kimi Chan. The two incidents brought out the safety car at the end of the lap so that the three cars could be retrieved. 

While the safety car was out, Kean Nakamura-Berta pitted with engine problems. He was able to continue the race but was now two laps down from the rest of the field.

Several of those who started near the back of the field made up multiple places. Rintaro Sato, who started in 11th after a penalty yesterday, was up to sixth. Fionn McLaughlin, who started 12th, was now running seventh. Alexandre Munoz, starting from 14th, was up to eighth, and Sebastian Wheldon, starting from 15th, climbed to 10th. 

The safety car came back in at the end of the second lap, with Roussel getting a good launch to lead Caretti heading into the first corner and Olivieri and Ary Bansal in hot pursuit. Sato made a pass on Chan for fifth at Mandarin, while McLaughlin also overtook Chan down the straight heading into Lisboa. 

Just behind them, Munoz dropped down the order as he faced a fuel compression issue. The reigning French F4 champion stopped at San Francisco, bringing out the yellow flag in sector two, but a full safety car period was not called. 

On the next lap, Caretti dove down the inside of Roussel at Lisboa to take the lead of the race. Roussel didn’t give up on trying to take back the position, however. As Caretti tried to break the tow on lap five, Olivieri began closing the gap to the top two. 

Caretti was still leading with four laps left to go, but Roussel wasn’t giving up. On lap seven, he got a much stronger exit from the final corner and tucked in behind Caretti going through Reservoir Bend. He pulled to the inside entering Mandarin Bend, fending off Caretti on the brakes entering Lisboa.

Now behind Roussel, Caretti started losing ground as he went through sector two – before losing it all when he got a snap of oversteer through Turn 11 and slammed into the barrier, breaking his left-rear suspension. He limped to a stop at the next corner, avoiding being hit by the rest of the field, and emerged uninjured but distraught.

Feeder Series understands that Caretti hit a patch of oil before his incident.

That incident promoted Olivieri and Sato to the lower two podium positions behind Roussel. The position of Caretti’s car, however, required a recovery vehicle on circuit, and there was not enough time to restart the race. Roussel therefore won in commanding yet anticlimactic fashion, with a disappointed Olivieri and a delighted Sato completing the podium.

Sebastian Wheldon came home fourth after starting 15th, with Ary Bansal starting and finishing fifth after being passed on lap eight by Sato at Mandarin and Wheldon under braking into Lisboa.

After his final-lap crash yesterday that cost him second place and a front-row start, McLaughlin recovered to sixth place on track from 12th on the grid. The F3-bound Red Bull junior, however, was still not satisfied with how his weekend unfolded.

“It’s just a very tough session for me – very messy week, to be honest,” McLaughlin told Feeder Series in the paddock. “The car wasn’t set up properly after the crashes today, so the steering wasn’t straight. I lost a bit of power as well and the set-up was not good, so it was very hard to drive,” he said.

After the race, McLaughlin was given a 30-second time penalty for failing to enter the pit lane after being out of position at the first safety car line. This dropped him all the way to 13th, last of the cars to finish on the lead lap.

Thomas Bearman therefore inherited sixth after starting 17th, with Kimi Chan seventh and Macanese driver Marcus Cheong eighth. Gino Trappa finished ninth from last on the grid, marking the first time that his chassis – which Fionn McLaughlin drove in practice with significant technical issues – made it through multiple laps at speed.

Tiago Rodrigues, Wang Yuzhe and Emily Cotty also finished ahead of the penalised McLaughlin.

Speaking to Feeder Series after the race, the drivers highlighted how their experience at Macau would help them in their main campaigns next year. 

Race winner Roussel said that the race mainly helped him improve his driving, especially on street tracks like Macau. The Frenchman is targeting a step up to FRegional next year.

“I’ve improved the concentration to not make mistakes with this – keep the pace, take risks, but keep concentration.”

Olivieri won the qualifying race yesterday on his first time at a street circuit. He is also expected to step up to the FR level next year.

“You need to be so precise and confident with yourself and with the car and pushing the car to the limits that you need to build on the session,” he observed. “It’s really easy to do silly mistakes, and if you crash, you lose a lot of confidence.”

“Macau Grand Prix is a street track, so everywhere is the wall next to us, so one mistake makes a huge crash. The most important thing is to stay on track,” Sato said. “We are human, so we make mistakes, so I tried not to make a big mistake to avoid crashes or avoid the loss of confidence.” 

Sato had originally finished third on track yesterday as well but received a penalty that dropped him down to 11th. He told media in the post-race press conference that he was ‘really, really happy’ to have recovered to third today. 

“It’s been a really tough race because I started P11, which was really [far] back,” Sato said. “And it’s so hard to overtake here. In the mountain section, it’s impossible to overtake, so I managed to stay on the track, which is the most important thing to do in a Macau Grand Prix. So yeah, I made a great start and fortunately I avoided the crashes as well, so I’m really, really happy.”

Roussel’s win has even greater significance beyond just this weekend. For him, it’s an opportunity to avenge his defeat in the French F4 title race this year.

The 19-year-old – engineered for the past two years by Arnaud Tanguy, whom he credited for his growth as a driver – had been Munoz’s closest rival until the final round at Le Mans. On that late September weekend, he dropped from 27 points to 61 in arrears and lost second place on a tiebreaker to Arthur Dorison.

“We know [it is] technically possible to match with the drivers in the F4 and we could beat them. We know it but [could] not really prove it,” he said. “Never racing at this track and never racing with the other drivers, I had a doubt – not on my pace [or] what I learned, what I worked before with the sim, with the technique, but [I] didn’t really expect this kind of race on this kind of track, this result.… I’m really happy, [and] I can celebrate that with all the team.”

Roussel is the son of 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Patrice Roussel, and his uncle Didier Roussel and cousin Léo Roussel, an LMP2 class champion in the European Le Mans Series, also race. There are plenty of lessons he has learned from both them, but as he joins the illustrious list of winners at Macau, he has plenty to learn from the racing at such an event too.

“It has taught me to take more risks sometimes,” he said. “[There was] just a little bit of apprehension to brake 10 metres later. We didn’t have a wall ahead of me. Now, I have to push the brake, push the grip, push the speed around the corner with all of the walls on each side to go as fast as possible close to the wall. So it really improved the confidence and the concentration.”

Header photo credit: Macau Grand Prix Organizing Committee