Max had a disastrous Macau Grand Prix when he was taken out at the first corner in this year’s classic F3 event. Another car launched over the back of him under braking for the Lisboa corner, landing on top of Max and eliminating him on the spot…….

Hopes had been high going into the race after Max had set the 8th fastest time of the 30 drivers in Sunday morning’s warm-up session, but it wasn’t to be. Having made a great start off the line, he got a trouble free run down towards Lisboa before he was hit.

It hadn’t been the easiest of events leading up to the Grand Prix after Max and his Carlin engineer had struggled to find a set-up that gave him the confidence needed to attack the formidable Macau street circuit. They did get it spot on for the morning warm-up, but in Friday’s qualifying session Max could only manage 17th place.

The format for the annual Grand Prix gives a second chance though, with a qualifying race held on the Saturday, but unfortunately this was a bit of non-event after several incidents produced safety car periods for the majority of the race, limiting it to just four racing laps and Max could only get up to 15th place.

Sunday morning’s warm-up confirmed the Carlin team had improved Max’s Dallara Volkswagen enormously and as the clock ticked down to the start of the Grand Prix everyone anticipated a good result.

Unfortunately his race lasted less than 30 seconds and after having to endure a long walk back to the team’s pit garage, a hugely disappointed Max tried to sum up his event;

“It’s been a tough week and has ended on a real low. I know Macau can be a bit of a lottery and like a lot of drivers before me I’ve been a victim of someone else’s accident. I was really up for today’s race because the car finally felt so good in the warm up. We didn’t get the car right before then though, it just never had the balance I needed and that put me on the back foot after a pretty poor qualifying. It was better in Saturday’s race, but with only a few laps of racing I could only make up a couple of places, so it was going to be a challenge from 15th on the grid today. The whole team has worked really hard and I’m just gutted that it ended this way.”

A very disappointing end to what has been a very successful 2009 season for Max – his best ever in F3. Now thoughts will be turning to next season with more races in the GP2 Asia series to come in February 2010.