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FIA European F3 champion Lando Norris could land a unique triple crown at this year’s Macau GP.

Already the youngest ever FIA F3 champion and the 2017’s top rookie, Lando is chasing the FIA F3 World Cup to round out a perfect season.

His only disappointment is that if he achieves the ‘triple’ he won’t do it in his seventeenth year, as he turns 18 just one week before Macau on November 19.

But wining won’t be easy.

The FIA and the Macau Grand Prix organisers have assembled a quality grid including eight of the top 10 from the European Championship and three of the top four from the Japanese title.

The winner-takes-all sprint over 15 laps (93kms) of the iconic Guia street circuit has boosted the careers of some of the world’s biggest motor sport stars,

Ayrton Senna won the first F3 race there 16 years before Lando was born.

“It would be awesome to win at Macau, such a prestigious track and the team would deserve every bit of it,” Lando said.

“It’s very tough with no room for errors.

“I crashed in the qualifying race last year and started last so I think eleventh in the Cup race was pretty good on a track with very limited overtaking places.

“I’ll be much more confident this year – the team has improved and we performed well at the street tracks this year.”

Looking ahead to his next step in the single-seater ladder, he added, “Formula 2 is the plan next year, quite a step up, and I’m very much looking forward to it. Macau will be the perfect track to end my F3 career.”

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With his fifth win of the year, Maximilian Günther (Prema Powerteam) concluded his third season in the FIA Formula 3 European Championship. At the 4.574 kilometres long Hockenheimring,

the 20-year-old German took the chequered flag ahead of Joel Eriksson (Motopark) and Guanyu Zhou (Prema Powerteam). That was enough for the Swede to secure second place in the final FIA Formula 3 European Championship drivers’ standings behind newly-crowned European Champion Lando Norris (Carlin).

In the final race of the FIA Formula 3 European Championship season, one of the things that still had to be decided was the battle for second place in the final drivers’ standings for 2017.

The candidates for the runner-up position were Joel Eriksson and Maximilian Günther and both put in their best performances. Günther started the race from pole position and took the lead at the start. Eriksson started from fifth place, was fourth after the opening lap, third after lap two and second after another lap.

On lap six, Ferdinand Habsburg (Carlin) crashed into the tyre stacks which led to a ‘full course yellow’, during which all drivers have to reduce their speed and overtaking is prohibited. This temporarily stopped the Swede’s progress. But as racing resumed, the BMW junior was also unable to significantly reduce his gap of slightly more than four seconds to Mercedes protégé Günther. The latter drove an undisputed victory home while Eriksson took the flag in second place. Thus, the Motopark driver, who had won last year’s FIA Formula 3 European Championship rookie title, ended up second in the drivers’ standings after his second season in the series.

Chinese driver Guanyu Zhou, a member of the Ferrari Driver Academy, claimed the final podium slot as he demoted the new FIA Formula 3 European Champion to fourth. Callum Ilott (Prema Powerteam), Jake Hughes (Hitech Grand Prix), Pedro Piquet (Van Amersfoort Racing), Nikita Mazepin (Hitech Grand Prix), Joey Mawson (Van Amersfoort Racing) and David Beckmann (Motopark) finished in the following positions. As Hughes had been too fast during the FCY (‘full course yellow’) phase, he was given a five second time penalty after the race. Thus, the Brit dropped back to eighth place behind Piquet and Mazepin.

Maximilian Günther (Prema Powerteam): “Winning this race was all I could do to keep my chances of becoming second in the drivers’ standings. My start was very good and I was able to pull a gap straight away. Later, I kept my advantage and tried to save my tyres. Winning in front of my home crowd is a nice way to conclude a season that didn’t always go like I wanted it to. We didn’t have the best package, but I think I have made the most out of it.”

Joel Eriksson (Motopark): “I am really happy to have secured runner-up position in the drivers’ standings. After having had problems last year, we worked hard over the winter. The first part of the season went well, but we again had troubles in the middle of the year. However, we were able to solve these as well and eventually, we were back on top again. Today, I knew that I at least had to finish third, because Maximilian was in a very good position to win the race. When I was in second place, I backed off a bit.”

Guanyu Zhou (Prema Powerteam): “For the first time, I have managed to score two podium finishes in one Formula 3 weekend. At the start of the race, I even was in second place, but Joel was faster and overtook me. From lap 15 till the end, I had to be careful to keep Lando Norris at bay, so I couldn’t make a mistake and had to be consistently fast.”

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This year’s FIA F3 World Cup will be fought out exclusively by the cream of young drivers seeking to make a name for themselves in world motor sport.

Eight of the top ten drivers from the 2017 FIA Formula 3 European Championship will all take to the track in Macau, as well as five of the seven rookies who contested their first year of F3 competition in the world’s premier series.

This of course means that newly-crowned FIA F3 champion Lando Norris will once again be facing his main rivals going up against the likes of Joel Eriksson, Maximilian Gunther and Callum Ilott.

Three of the top four runners in the 2017 All-Japan Formula 3 Championship will also contest the event in the form of Sho Tsuboi, Alex Palou and Ritomo Miyata.

While last year’s inaugural World Cup was weighted towards more experienced competitors, with Antonio Felix Da Costa winning his second Macau GP in five years from Felix Rosenqvist who was making a bid to become the first person to win three Macau GP’s in succession, this year it is guaranteed that a new winner will take to the top step of the podium.

2016’s front-running drivers have moved on to race in the FIA Formula E Championship, although Rosenqvist will debut in the FIA GT World Cup at the Guia circuit.

While none of the drivers on this year’s grid have won at Macau, many have some experience driving the challenging Guia Circuit. Ilott, fifth in the 2016 FIA F3 World Cup and fourth in this year’s European F3 Championship knows Macau well. His form in 2016 following Da Costa into second in the qualifying race and battling for an early lead in the final marked him as one of the fastest of the young guns at the circuit.

Likewise Eriksson, second to Norris in the European championship with seven wins and thirteen podiums, will surely be one to watch.

Norris also knows the undulating Macau circuit, although arguably not as comprehensively as Ilott or Eriksson. Norris first raced at Macau in the inaugural FIA F3 World Cup in 2016 when he finished 11th, after qualifying in the top ten on debut and testing the track limits when his nose cone was torn off in a qualifying race incident.

The demanding Macau circuit with its bumpy surface, high speed main straight and 19 wall-enclosed corners is a constant challenge for both rookies and veteran drivers alike.

This year nine of the FIA F3 World Cup contestants will be new to the track.

The most prominent will be Mick Schumacher, son of seven time World F1 champion Michael, twelfth outright and third in the Rookie Championship of the FIA F3 European title.

His father won the Macau GP in 1990 in spectacular fashion from Mika Hakkinen.

Other key drivers to look out for will be:

  • Sergio Sette Camara: Third in 2016 FIA F3 World Cup. Set the lap record around the Guia circuit in 2015 – a 2:10.186
  • Kenta Yamashita: 2016 All-Japan F3 Champion. Impressed in the first FIA F3 World Cup finishing 4th. Currently racing in Super GT and Super Formula in Japan

FIA Director of Single-Seater Championships, Charlie Whiting, said: “It’s very exciting to see so many young stars contesting the second FIA F3 World Cup. This is exactly what the event is all about – bringing together the top talents from the top F3 series around the world for an end-of-season showdown on this incredible circuit. Macau always resets the form book, and it’s sure to be an intense and unpredictable battle for a new driver to be crowned FIA F3 World Cup winner.”

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Lando Norris (Carlin) has done it, the Brit is the new FIA Formula 3 European Champion.

For the young talent, who is backed by the McLaren Formula 1 team, second place behind race winner Joel Eriksson (Motopark) was enough to seal the title. Moreover, Norris secured the title of the best rookie driver.

Ferdinand Habsburg (Carlin) claimed the final podium slot in the 28th race of the FIA Formula 3 European Championship season that was held in bright sunshine at the 4.574 kilometres long Hockenheimring in Germany.

Callum Ilott (Prema Powerteam) started from pole position and initially led the race, but lost his position already on the run to the hairpin when Joel Eriksson successfully attacked him.

Ferdinand Habsburg returned from the opening lap in second place, followed by Lando Norris, Callum Ilott, Jehan Daruvala (Carlin) and Pedro Piquet (Van Amersfoort Racing).

On lap seven, Lando Norris attacked his team-mate Habsburg, worked his way past the Austrian and then was able to pull a gap from Habsburg. However, he was unable to attack race leader Eriksson, so that the Motopark driver brought an undisputed victory home. Lando Norris took the flag in second place, which was enough to seal the FIA Formula 3 European Championship title early.

Behind Habsburg, Callum Ilott finished fourth at the Formula 1 track of Hockenheim, followed by Jehan Daruvala, Nikita Mazepin (Hitech Grand Prix), Tadasuke Makino (Hitech Grand Prix) and Maximilian Günther (Prema Powerteam).

The German, who was the last remaining rival for Lando Norris in the battle for the title prior to the race, only started from twelfth place and eventually had to make do with tenth position.

Because Joel Eriksson, one of Günther’s opponents in the battle for runner-up position in the championship, scored 25 points for his win while Günther only had one point for tenth, the Swede moved ahead of the German and is now second in the drivers’ standings.

Joel Eriksson (Motopark): “My race was really good. Admittedly, my start was worse than Callum’s but I was able to slot in ahead of Lando. On the opening lap, I had a good slipstream in the run to the hairpin and I overtook Callum on the outside."

"Then, I concentrated on pulling a gap and maintaining it. Now, I am second in the FIA Formula 3 European Championship drivers’ standings and I will do everything to ensure that I will be there at the end of the season as well.”

Lando Norris (Carlin): “Of course, I am happy that I am now the FIA Formula 3 European Champion, even though I wanted to do it at Spielberg already. Prior to the season, my team and I didn’t expect to win the title, but we worked hard and this is the well-deserved reward. However, my rivals, first and foremost Maximilian Günther, also made things pretty difficult for me."

"This title probably is the most important one in my career so far. In this race, my start wasn’t really good, so I dropped back to third. When I then wanted to overtake Callum, we slightly tangled, allowing Ferdinand to get past the two of us into second place."

"When he made a mistake later on, I was able to overtake him again. Against Joel, I didn’t have a chance anymore, our pace simply was too similar.”

 

         

 

 

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