Freddie Slater starts from pole at the Macau Grand Prix.

      Freddie Slater, a Prema Racing driver, started from the second row in Saturday’s qualifying race in Macau, but won convincingly, taking the chequered flag more than five seconds ahead of his nearest rival. Already in the first corner the 17-year-old Briton passed pole-sitter Théophile Naël on the outside, took the lead, and over ten laps of the demanding street circuit no one was able to catch him. However, an investigation into Slater is not yet complete, as the stewards suspect him of breaching the pit lane speed limit before the race start. Naël could not hold onto second place: exiting that same first corner he was immediately overtaken by ART driver Evan Giltier and Mari Boya, Naël’s teammate at Pinnacle Motorsport. After the first lap Slater had extended his lead to 1.682 seconds and continued to build it, while Giltier struggled to hold off the charging Pinnacle drivers, who were clearly capable of going faster. Mari Boya tried to attack Giltier a couple of times in the Lisboa turn, but those attempts could not be brought to fruition. But on the fifth lap the reigning Formula 3 vice-champion finally got past Evan and moved up to second. By that time — roughly the middle of the race — Slater had pulled away from the field by 5.766 seconds, and Boya, now with clear track ahead of him, tried to catch him. But it was already too late, given that their cars were almost equal in speed, and five laps were only enough for the Spaniard to cut the deficit by just half a second. On the sixth lap Naël recovered one position and ultimately finished third. Freddie Slater claimed an important victory and will start from pole on Sunday, but beside him on the front row will be Mari Boya’s car, a very formidable rival, so there is a good chance tomorrow’s race will be a hard-fought battle. Despite the difficulty of the Macau street circuit, Saturday passed without any major incidents, except that Oscar Wurz, the younger son of former Formula 1 driver Alex Wurz, misjudged his speed entering the Melco hairpin, locked his brakes, and ended up running off the track. Fortunately he didn’t make contact with any rivals’ cars — it was the only retirement among the 27 starters in Saturday’s race.