Théophile Naël will start from pole in Macau on Saturday.

      This weekend the Macau Grand Prix is taking place, by long-standing tradition the season finale for the junior series, and the main race will be held on 16 November, but on Saturday there will be the so‑called qualifying race, which determines the starting order for Sunday.

      Yesterday and today qualifying sessions were held on the famous street circuit with a lap length of 6,120 m, and depending on the results the cars will line up on the grid on Saturday.

      On Thursday the best time of the session was set by Prema driver Freddie Slater, who did a lap in 2:15.708 – that was the benchmark for today’s qualifying, and the Briton’s time was bettered by Théophile Naël, an 18‑year‑old Frenchman racing for the Irish team KCMG Pinnacle Motorsport.

      Today he was fastest of all: his pole time was 2:15.609. In last season’s Formula 3 Naël raced with Van Amersfoort Racing, stood on the podium three times and finished 8th in the drivers’ standings. Next year he will continue in F3 but will change teams – he will now drive for the Spanish Campos Racing. He is known in Spain, having become the 2023 champion of the national F4 series there.

      Slater will also start from the front row on Saturday; from the second row will be two ART drivers representing different countries: Frenchman Evan Guilletier, who this year won the title in the Formula Regional Middle East, and Japanese driver Taito Kato, who also competes under a French license.

      From the third row the qualifying race will be started by Enzo Deligny (R‑ace GP) and Mattia Colnagi, the pole‑sitter’s teammate. Another Pinnacle Motorsport driver, the reigning Formula 3 runner‑up Mari Boya, will start seventh.

      The results among the leaders are quite close, considering the length of the circuit – Boya was less than half a second adrift of the pole‑sitter. But, for example, Charlie Wurz, driving for Evans GP, was 2.760 seconds slower than Naël – the son of former Austrian driver Alex Wurz only posted the 22nd fastest time.

      The qualifying race starts on Saturday at 16:15 local time – in Moscow that’s 11:15 a.m.