Edoardo Mortara leads the Macau GT field (Photo Credit: GCS)
Double Macau GP winner Edoardo Mortara added victory in the Star River Windsor Arch Macau GT Cup, leading from lights to flag in the shortened race.
The Italian converted his pole position into victory, holding off Keita Sawa and Danny Watts behind.
“I had a good feeling with the car since the beginning of this race weekend,” said Mortara of his Audi R8 LMS. “For racing drivers it's all about confidence with the car, and when you have the right confidence, you can push.”
On the initial start Mortara took advantage of his pole postions leaving Sawa and Watts to battle towards the Lisboa corner for the first time. Sawa – a past winner of the GT event on the Guia Circuit held of Watts – giving the GT3 spec McLaren MP4-12C its Asian debut.
Watts said; “I have enjoyed the weekend from the word 'go'. I think we have learned a lot. [The McLaren] is a very new programme, only eight months, and of course you need a very different set up in Macau. I have to say, Edoardo has been pure class all weekend, and has raised the GT Cup to a new level because every year I've been here, the level gets better and better.”
The race fell under a lengthy red flag after a number of cars went off on the exit of the Mandarin sweeper. With a car ahead dropping fluid on the track Frank Yu and Eddie Yau had separate accidents, Yau's Porsche coming to rest in the middle of the track where it was collected heavily by John Shen as he bounced off the barrier on the outside of the track.
The race cut from the intended 12 laps to ten and restarted behind the safety cars, with oil flags displayed on the run to Mandarin.
Mortara outran the chasing pack for the five racing laps that remained, Sawa finishing six seconds behind, Watts nine seconds further in arrears.
Rodolfo Avila finished fourth. United Autosports driver Richard Meins finished seventh after surviving the earlier carnage at Mandarin when he was racing between Yu and Yau.
