NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Kunimoto wins Macau

Japan's Keisuke Kunimoto won the Macau Grand Prix Formula 3 race on Sunday in his TOM'S Dallara-Toyota. He made a better start than fellow front row man Edoardo Mortara (Signature Plus Dallara-Volkswagen) and held the position when the Safety Car was sent out after third-placed Roberto Streit Raikkonen Robertson Dallara-Mercedes collided with Sam Bird (Manor Dallara-Mercedes).

After the restart Mortara later made a mistake and dropped to fourth place behind Daniel Campos-Hull and Jaime Alguesuari but he was able to recover second. Brendon Hartley (Carlin Dallara-Mercedes) finished third despite starting the race in 20th place on the grid.

A number of other strong runners hit trouble in the qualifying race. Hartley collided with James Jakes (ART Grand Prix) on the first lap of that event and there were similar incidents which took out Carlo Van Dam (TOM'S Dallara-Toyota) and Renger van der Zande (Prema Powerteam Dallara-Mercedes). There was further mayhem when Jules Bianchi (ART Grand Prix) spun in Lisboa corner and caused an accident that took out much of the midfield.

These all resulted in a Safety Car and when the race restarted Kunimoto led all the way with Mortara chasing and Streit third.