Goethe quickest in soaking wet first Macau GP practice session

Photo: FIA

MP Motorsport’s Oliver Goethe was quickest in the opening practice session for the 2024 Macau Grand Prix.

The 40-minute session was held in soaking conditions, as Macau was hit by a cyclone warning and with another low-force cyclone likely on its way.

Everyone ran on wet weather tyres, and the main focus on the session was displacing water from the racing line and learning the track rather than pushing the limits.

The Prema trio of Freddie Slater, Alex Dunne and Dino Beganovic occupied the top spots 15 minutes in, then Beganovic had an incident that led to red flags being waved. TOM’S driver Rikuto Kobayashi crashed at Lisboa at the same time, and neither driver was able to rejoin practice once the session resumed after a 10-minute pause.

Lisboa, well known for its braking zone after the main straights, caught out several more drivers and ART Grand Prix’s James Wharton was one of the unluckiest as he crashed. TGM Grand Prix’s Sota Ogawa also found the walls in a way which meant his session was over, and that incident actually ended practice for all as red flags had to wave again and that covered the final two-and-a-half minutes of the scheduled session time.

Goethe ended up being fastest by two seconds, a 2m41.270s putting him past the Prema pair of Slater and Dunne. KCMG by Pinnacle Motorsport’s Noel Leon was fourth, 3.341 seconds off the pace, then next up were R-ace GP’s Tuukka Taponen and Ugo Ugochuckwu.

Evans GP’s Cooper Webster was 4.8s slower than Goethe in seventh, and the top 10 was completed by Theophile Nael (Sainteloc Racing), Beganovic and Enzo Deligny (R-ace).

Free practice 1 results