Alex Lynn has taken a sensational win in the most prestigious race on the world junior motor racing calendar – the Macau Grand Prix.
The rising British star led the main race from start to finish, fending off 2012 winner Antonio Felix da Costa in a high-pressure chase to take an emotional victory by just over a second.
He laid the foundations with a win in Saturday’s qualification race, which set the grid for the Grand Prix itself, after a battling drive in his Mercedes-powered Theodore Racing by Prema Dallara.
Alex was in the mix right from the word go, topping Thursday’s opening free practice session. There was a minor setback when he crashed in qualifying during the afternoon, but he was confident that Friday’s qualifying session would be much quicker.
That proved to be the case, and Lynn went third fastest with a storming lap. Despite not getting the benefit of a tow down the long straights – which is worth half a second and benefited Raffaele Marciello and Felix Rosenqvist (who qualified first and second) – he was within a tenth of a second of pole.
“My engineer Jean-Francois Levere was telling me I did a really good job, but it still hurts a little bit not to be fastest, especially when I did that as a rookie last year in Macau,” said Alex. “But I just have to put my ego aside! Actually, being third while lapping on my own is something I’m proud of.
“Technically it doesn’t make much difference if you’re in the top three or four, so in that respect I achieved a goal. I wanted the kudos of being fastest in qualifying, but I didn’t get lucky enough to get a slipstream.”
Lynn led briefly from third on the grid at the start of the qualification race, but had to brake late to defend from Rosenqvist and conceded the lead to the Swede. After a safety car period, he pulled off a perfect move on Rosenqvist to retake first position, and pulled a gap of over two seconds.
In the Grand Prix itself, he got a strong start and was able to keep himself just out of slipstreaming range of the fighting pack behind on the run to the crucial Lisboa bend.
Once again there was an early safety car, but Alex again got a perfect restart and pulled out enough of a gap over the mountain section to the chasing Antonio Felix da Costa to leave himself safe from attack from the 2012 Macau GP winner.
The gap was up to two and a half seconds with a few laps remaining, but yellow flags meant Lynn slowed and da Costa slashed the gap by a second. His lead was now potentially at risk, but Alex concentrated on maintaining the advantage and brought his car home for the biggest win of his career.
“I can’t put into words how I feel,” he said. “Since I finished third last year I’ve dreamed of winning this race. I can’t believe I’ve actually done it!
“I had quite a lot of understeer in the qualification race, and on the data it showed that my team-mate Raffaele Marciello was quicker than me in the last corner. Because it can be a disadvantage starting from pole owing to the slipstream I thought I might have to battle through, so we set the car up to have some good front end for my corner exits. That meant that in the last few laps the rear end was going away. As the gap came down I thought, ‘Hang on, hang on, hang on’. I did it in the end!”
It was a nervous final few laps, but Lynn emulated six previous Theodore Racing winners of the Macau Grand Prix, including the great Ayrton Senna in 1983.
“My engineer was telling me the gap every lap,” said Alex, who is a member of the MSA’s Team UK and the British Racing Drivers Club’s SuperStars programme. “Then I saw the yellow flag, I backed off an Antonio didn’t. Then my engineer told me I had to take some risk. I was pushing like crazy and counting down the laps.”
Lynn now heads into the off-season on a high, and will begin his winter activities with a prize test in a Formula Renault 3.5 Series car, his reward for finishing third in the FIA Formula 3 European Championship.
