Macau GP: Da Costa grabs provisional pole as crashes mar session

Da Costa was among the fastest cars throughout the shortened session that witnessed a series of incidents.

But it was the Carlin driver’s best effort with 12-minutes remaining that secured him the front spot before a final red flag – caused by Daniel Juncadella crashing at Fishermen’s Bend – brought qualifying to an early end.

“It’s still very early days because so much can happen on a Macau Grand Prix weekend, but it’s always better to end up first than last,” said da Costa. “I quickly could get up to speed with the track, but wasn’t so happy with the car after first practice this morning.

“But the team did a great job to make some changes and everything clicked, so I’m pretty happy.”

Van Amersfoort Racing’s Callum Ilott ended up second fastest after briefly topping the timesheets prior to da Costa’s best overall time – ending the day 0.226 seconds down.

Felix Rosenqvist, who had been quickest in morning practice, was the third fastest driver as he said he still needed to better understand the new Pirelli tyres that are being used in Macau for the first time.

Japanese F3 champion Kenta Yamashita ended up fourth quickest, after recovering from losing a wheel in the early stages of the session – and causing the first red flag to come out after 15 minutes to allow it to be recovered.

The second red flag came out eight minutes later when a car was briefly stranded in the middle of the track before Lisboa. 

The third stoppage was caused with 12 minutes remaining after Lando Norris – an impressive seventh quickest – crashed at San Francisco at the same time as Joel Eriksson crashed at the Solitude Esses.

The session was stopped for good after Juncadella, who ended up fifth, hit the barriers at Fishermen’s with two minutes remaining.

Qualifying results:

Pos	Name	Team	Time	Gap
1	Antonio Felix Da Costa	Carlin	02:11.5
2	Callum Ilott	Van Amersfoort Racing	02:11.8	0.226
3	Felix Rosenqvist	SJM Theodore Racing by Prema	02:11.8	0.262
4	Kenta Yamashita	ThreeBond with T-Sport	02:11.8	0.262
5	Daniel Juncadella	Hitech GP	02:11.8	0.286
6	Sergio Sette Camara	Carlin	02:12.0	0.459
7	Lando Norris	Carlin	02:12.0	0.461
8	Nick Cassidy	SJM Theodore Racing by Prema	02:12.1	0.588
9	Jake Hughes	Carlin	02:12.4	0.825
10	Sam Macleod	Fortec Motorsport	02:12.5	1.001
11	Alexander Sims	Double R Racing	02:12.6	1.065
12	Arjun Maini	Motopark	02:12.7	1.122
13	George Russell	Hitech GP	02:12.7	1.135
14	Anthoine Hubert	Van Amersfoort Racing	02:12.7	1.192
15	Maximilian Gunther	SJM Theodore Racing by Prema	02:13.0	1.482
16	Daniel Ticktum	Double R Racing	02:13.1	1.567
17	Pedro Piquet	Van Amersfoort Racing	02:13.3	1.741
18	CHANG Wing Chung	ThreeBond with T-Sport	02:13.3	1.801
19	Nikita Mazepin	Hitech GP	02:13.4	1.903
20	Joel Eriksson	Motopark	02:13.5	1.944
21	YE Hong Li	B-Max Racing Team	02:14.0	2.477
22	David Beckmann	Mucke Motorsport	02:14.1	2.527
23	Jann Mardenborough	B-Max Racing Team	02:14.2	2.639
24	ZHOU Guan Yu	Motopark	02:14.3	2.743
25	Keyvan Andres Soori	Mcke Motorsport	02:14.8	3.268
26	Sho Tsuboi	Team TOM'S	02:15.1	3.516
27	Daiki Sasaki	B-Max Racing Team	02:15.3	3.726
28	Ferdinand Habsburg	Fortec Motorsport	02:15.3	3.801
29	Tadasuke Makino	Toda Racing	02:15.6	4.083