Multiple red flags hamper team effort at Guia Circuit
SJM Theodore PREMA Racing faced some heavily unlucky circumstances today as the second qualifying session wrapped up the pre-race activities for the 71st Macau Grand Prix.
Despite the rain finally easing off, the 40-minute session was interrupted seven times by red flags, with multiple incidents taking out many of the competitors and eventually causing an early end to the day. Unfortunately, two of the team's cars were put out of contention in an early melee.
In the end, Freddie Slater secured P7, navigating the many disruptions. Despite the clear potential for pole, the 16-year-old Briton, who is making his Formula Regional debut in Macau, saw his efforts jeopardized by the red flags. In addition, the team's position at the very beginning of the pit-lane impacted its chances, meaning that the drivers were among the last to complete every lap with more chances for incidents in the process.
Both Dino Beganovic and Alex Dunne found their path blocked early on by a crashed car at the Police corner and were left with nowhere to go, picking up considerable damage and having to sit out the rest of the session. They had both secured amazing lap times in their first attempt. It is noteworthy that the Swede was still able to take P15 with his early flyer and Dunne qualified in P18 with what was his first dry lap aboard a Formula Regional car.
With the great pace showcased across the board by the team's excellent trio of drivers, and the chances for recovery provided by Macau's unique layout and character, SJM Theodore PREMA Racing is looking forward to tomorrow's Qualifying Race, which will start at 15:30 local time and will set the grid for Sunday's Grand Prix.
#30 - Dino Beganovic
“It’s disappointing not to get a proper shot at it in qualifying, especially with the confidence I felt in the car out of the box. These two days have been extremely tricky, but the pace is there and I think I proved that on my first lap in the dry today. I was P1 when I came around Police and just found another car in the wall in front of me. There was nothing I could do. Still, we know the potential is there to move forward, and we have two races to try and fight back. This is not over and we are not giving up – the slope is just slightly steeper than we wanted.”
#31 - Freddie Slater
"A fairly chaotic day that left me with half a flying lap in qualifying. The pace has been good in the dry and in the wet, but unfortunately being so far back in the pitlane with the amount of red flags that we had, we never had a chance to show our pace. We got purple sectors but we were never able to complete a full lap. It's a bit unfortunate, but what matters at the end of the day is that we did the best job we could with what we had. We will fight tomorrow, a long weekend still to go and we never give up. A massive thank you to SJM Theodore PREMA Racing for giving me a car like that because it was always on rails and we had the pace for pole. I'm looking forward to the races, it should be good fun."
#32 - Alex Dunne
"There's not much to say. The only positive thing is that the pace was strong. The lap I did was my first ever lap with the dry in this car, so putting it in P5 with a small mistake due to some drops of rain in the last corner was a positive to take. The team did everything they could, the car was very good, which always made my job a bit easier. There were just too many red flags and the place we are down the pit lane made our life difficult. It is what it is, but at least the pace was good, and as a racing driver the first thing you want is to be quick. Now we will try to fight back in the races."