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55th Macau Grand Prix |
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Hong Kong's First FIA
World Championship Point! Photos
courtesy of:
Paul Cherry, Create Images,
Terry Duckham, William Furniss, Dominik Greiner, LAT Photographic,
Colin Marsh, Matthieu Millet, Phil Newsome, Fabio Poli and PR Plus.
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The Macau Grand Prix 2008
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| The City of Dreams BMW in which I entered
the World Touring Car Championship races. (Romano Poli) |
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| I drove for the Wiechers-Sport team in the
Yokohama Independents' Trophy. (Macau GP) |
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| Before the Grand Prix I visited the Fountain of
Hope orphanage in Macau. |
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| We displayed the kids' wishing cards on the wall
of our pit garage. (Create Images) |
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| On scrutineering day the WTCC drivers played
basketball against the F3 drivers and bike racers. (Romano Poli) |
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| And attended the drivers' briefing. |
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| Billy Au - who runs EDJ Karting - came to Macau
to help out. (Colin Marsh) |
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| Billy spent a lot of time applying stickers!
(Colin Marsh) |
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| Before first practice I received some advice from
Andre Couto. He was born in Macau and won the F3 Grand Prix in 2000.
(Macau GP) |
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| And after practice I joked with
Singapore's Melvin Choo. (Colin Marsh) |
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| The Wiechers Sport team ran two
BMW 320si. Here I follow my team mate Takayui Aoki. (Phil Newsome) |
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| The run down to Fishermen's
Bend. (Paul Cherry) |
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| Donna Maria (Paul
Cherry) |
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| (Romano Poli) |
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| My father, Colin and Rupert
Lloyd Thomas (above) worked hard In the media centre to keep the blog
updated.(Phil Newsome) |
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| Whilst in the paddock Simon
Harrison shot a film about the City of Dreams team. (Macau GP) |
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| And Phil Newsome was out in the
hills taking shots like this.(Phil Newsome) |
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| Thanks to Charles, Raymond and
Thomas at Create Images for some wonderful shots. (Create Images) |
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| Racing in a World Championship
was a new experience.(Romano Poli) |
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| So I did my best to keep out of
the way of the superstars, like Alex Zanardi. (Paul Cherry - well
done for catching the blinking indicator!) |
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| Whilst still trying to go fast!
(Create Images) |
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| A little too fast in the final
free practice! (Paul Cherry) |
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| It was a small impact but the
car was craned off the track... (Macau GP) |
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| ... and taken back to the
paddock on a truck. (Colin Marsh) |
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| Then I had to explain to Andre
what went wrong! (Colin Marsh) |
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| The Wiechers boys had the car
fixed in time for qualifying and I found some pace. (Paul Cherry) |
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| Luckily sticker guru George
Holroyd was in town and had the City of Dreams car looking perfect
again by race day. |
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| So that WTCC photographer Romano
Poli could capture this wonderful image. (Romano Poli) |
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| Whilst Colin got all arty on the
grid. (Colin Marsh) |
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| And the Dream Girls got into the
spirit of the event. (Colin Marsh) |
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| The first race passed without
too much incident. I went from 20th to 17th. (Create Images) |
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| Cheered on by the guests in the
City of Dreams marquee. (Paul Cherry) |
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| Race two was much more dramatic
(WTCC) |
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| Whilst other cars threw
themselves at the wall I was able to climb from 17th to finish 8th
overall and 2nd in class. (Romano Poli) |
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| Eighth place meant an FIA World
Championship point. The first ever for a Hong Kong driver. (Colin Marsh) |
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| Which made the Wiechers Sport
team very happy. (Colin Marsh) |
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| And caused Simon Dewhurst from
City of Dreams to risk hugging a (very) sweaty racing driver. (Colin
Marsh) |
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| It was a good day.... in the
City of Dreams! |