The Macau track is one of the trickiest in the world and this year it was even more of a challenge with terrible conditions lurking to catch the unwary because of heavy rain making life difficult for teams and drivers. The Formula Regional race in which the Scuderia Ferrari Driver Academy pair of Tuukka Taponen and Dino Beganovic were taking part, featured a record number of red flags, right from free practice on Thursday, never letting up all the way to Sunday’s chequered flag.
On track. Thursday’s first qualifying session took place with intermittent rain falling. After two red flags, the session ended with Taponen second and Beganovic ninth. The second qualifying session was the first time the track was dry, which meant drivers now faced the difficulty of having to discover the track anew after three wet sessions. The result? No fewer than seven red flags were required and it proved difficult for Taponen, who hit the barriers at turn 17 in the early stages, ending up 20th, while Dino was 15th having collided with Rintaro Sato, who had bounced off the barriers and was blocking the middle of the track. “It was disappointing not to live up to our potential,” commented Beganovic. “I knew I had good pace, the car balance was good and in the opening laps I was immediately quickest. Then, at the most important part of the session I found a car blocking the track and there was nothing I could do. It was very disappointing as through no fault of my own I was a long way down the order.”
Qualifying race. Saturday’s Qualifying Race was run over ten laps, the Safety Car required at the end of the opening lap because of two crashes at Mandarin corner, as Sota Ogawa and Taponen crashed heavily into the outside barriers. The race resumed at the end of lap 2, but with three laps remaining the rain arrived and the race was red flagged. The race was restarted behind the Safety Car, with everyone on rain tyres with Beganovic moving up several places to finish tenth at the chequered flag.
Main race. In the actual race on Sunday, Dino started from the fifth row, while Tuukka started 24th following the accident in qualifying. The race was red flagged at the end of the opening lap because of a multiple pile-up which blocked the track going into Lisboa. There followed three laps of racing before another Safety Car, prior to a final dash to the chequered flag. Beganovich and Taponen both made up places, making no mistakes, to finish eighth and tenth respectively.
Disappointment. “I’m definitely not happy with eighth place, but I don’t regret coming to Macau,” said Dino. “At this track, you love driving every second, but unfortunately, this weekend was affected by endless interruptions and I’d like to have had more laps to be able to push to the limit, but that’s Macau. Qualifying had a major effect on the outcome of the weekend and if I’d started higher up the order I could have aimed for a great result looking at the pace we had, but that wasn’t down to me or the team.”