Racing drivers don’t agree on much, but ask them which event scares them most and you can bet many (if not most) will cite the Macau Grand Prix. Winning there, on a tight and twisting city circuit, is considered as great an achievement in some circles as winning the Monaco GP. Lewis Hamilton said it’s even better. Macau has been a spotlight-casting event for the careers of several high profile drivers, Ayrton Senna, Andy Wallace and Michael Schumacher among them. This weekend, dozens of hopefuls will line up again for the crowning event of their 2018 season. But what is it that makes this faraway and ever-so-daunting GP so special? “Macau is just such an incredibly difficult circuit to master,” explains former world touring car champ, Britain’s Rob Huff, a nine-times winner of the event and top qualifier for this weekend’s WTCC race. “There are concrete walls, no run-off and absolutely zero margin for error.” Huff knows his way around Macau, obviously – his record speaks to his love for the street circuit. But even a veteran cannot take the 3.8-mile layout – which has sections so narrow that two cars can barely squeeze through without repainting the walls – for granted. “The fastest corner, Mandarin [a right kink], you approach it at 160mph and you go through it at about 150mph,” he explains. “But every time you go through there the surface is different. Some laps you understeer, others you oversteer. Mandarin is a corner you spend the whole… [Read full story]
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