Photo: Macau Grand Prix
A grid of 25 cars is expected for the revived Formula 4 South East Asia series’ upcoming non-championship round in Macau, and includes European drivers and teams.
Headlining the provisional entry list for the races on November 11/12 is Italian team Prema and French team R-ace GP.
Prema ran the inaugural Euro 4 champion and won the Italian F4 teams’ title for a seventh time this year, while R-ace is still searching for its first F4 crown. However it will run the #1 car in Macau, and it will be driven by Raphael Narac.
The Frenchman started the year by coming 32nd in F4 United Arab Emirates with R-ace, then showed improved form to come 19th in Italian F4. His team-mate will be former Renault Formula 1 junior Hadrien David, who was 2019 French F4 champion and Formula Regional European Championship runner-up in 2021.
Prema will be running four cars, three under the Theodore Racing banner it usually uses when racing in Macau, and leading its line-up is Charles Leong. The Macanese talent, also 22, was Chinese F4 champion in 2017, fourth in the 2018 FRegional Asian Championship and then won the Macau GP in 2020 and ’21 when it ran for F4 cars.
His team-mates are Red Bull junior Arvid Lindblad, who recently came third in Italian F4 and fourth in Euro 4, Rashid Al Dhaheri and Ginetta Junior champion Freddie Slater who since making his debut in F4 in August has starred across Europe.
Australian team AGI Sport is entering Italian F4 regular Jack Beeton and karting graduates Peter Bouzelinos and Nicolas Stati, and coming from Japan is the Super Formula Lights-experienced Miki Koyama (racing for the Super Licence team) and B-MAX Racing which has partnered with Filipino-Irish squad Pinnacle Motorsport to enter four cars. One of them will be driven by cult single-seater racing hero “Dragon”, who usually races in SF Lights and Japanese F4.
The Chinese teams that have signed up to race in Macau are set to contest the other F4 SEA rounds, since the season starts in their home country, and several have been racing in Chinese F4 this year.
That championship’s points leader Tiago Rodrigues will switch from Champ Motorsport to join Asia Racing Team, which has been a key player in reviving F4 SEA and bringing it to Macau.
Macau F4 race entry list
| No. | Driver | Team | 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Raphael Narac | R-ace GP | 19th in Italian F4 |
| #2 | Hadrien David | R-ace GP | 29th in FREC |
| #4 | Marcus Cheong | Asia Racing Team | currently 18th in Chinese F4 |
| #5 | Jaden Pariat | BlackArts Racing | 16th in FWinter Series |
| #7 | Tiago Rodrigues | Asia Racing Team | Currently 1st in Chinese F4 |
| #8 | Miki Koyama | Super Licence | Currently 28th in Super GT300 |
| #11 | Charles Leong | Prema | GT racing in China |
| #14 | Rashid Al Dhaheri | Prema | 10th in Italian F4 |
| #19 | Bianca Bustamante | BlackArts Racing | 7th in F1 Academy |
| #23 | Arvid Lindblad | Prema | 3rd in Italian F4 |
| #27 | Freddie Slater | Prema | 10th in Euro 4 |
| #28 | Vivian Siu | Champ Motorsport by R&B Racing | currently 28th in Chinese F4 |
| #30 | “Dragon” | Pinnacle Motorsport/B-MAX Racing | Currently 12th in SF Lights |
| #45 | Jack Beeton | AGI Sport | 15th in Euro 4 |
| #46 | Peter Bouzelinos | AGI Sport | 8th in Australian Karting (TaG 125) |
| #68 | Ethan Ho | KRC | 14th in USF2000 |
| #75 | Nicolas Stati | AGI Sport | 40th in Australian Karting (KA2) |
| #77 | Enzo Yeh | Asia Racing Team | |
| #88 | Kai Daryanani | Pinnacle Motorsport/B-MAX Racing | 24th in British F4 |
| #96 | Kevin Xiao | Asia Racing Team | |
| TBA | Ka Kum Chui | Champ Motorsport by R&B Racing | currently 22nd in Chinese F4 |
| TBA | Marco Lau | H-Star Racing | currently 14th in Chinese F4 |
| TBA | Thomas Leung | H-Star Racing | |
| TBA | TBA | Pinnacle Motorsport/B-MAX Racing | |
| TBA | TBA | Pinnacle Motorsport/B-MAX Racing |