The Macau Grand Prix, back for its 71st edition this weekend, is renowned as the proving ground for young motorsport talent and exactly 10 years ago the eyes of the world were on a teenage Max Verstappen as he arrived in the southern Chinese city.
The young flying Dutchman was already being tipped as a Formula One world champion of the future when strapped himself into an F3 car to take on the treacherous Guia Circuit in November 2014.
He had one aim in mind, to emulate the F3 victories of his heroes Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher, who had conquered the 6.2km (3.85 miles) of narrow, unforgiving city street track — one of the greatest challenges in motorsport.
Signed a few months earlier by Red Bull’s junior team, Verstappen had been guaranteed a 2015 Toro Rosso Formula One seat after only a single season in the European F3 Championship.
He won 10 out of 33 races in F3, including an unprecedented six in a row, with 27 of them, incredibly, taking place before his 17th birthday.
“It’s definitely unheard of what Verstappen did that year,” motor racing expert Mattias Persson told AFP in the Macau paddock on Friday.
“That 2014 season, I think it’s one of the standout performances that I’ve ever seen in motorsport.”
In October, Verstappen replaced Jean-Eric Vergne in practice at the Japanese Grand Prix to become the youngest F1 driver in history at just 17 years and three days old.
Just over a month later he took to the treacherous streets of Macau, the Las Vegas of the Far East, for the ultimate test of man and machine.
The precocious Verstappen proved to be quick, third fastest on the Friday, and started the next day’s qualifying race from fifth, after a penalty.
He flew off the grid and up to second behind pole-sitter Felix Rosenqvist of Sweden.
‘Stay out of the walls’
Challenging for the lead in his Van Amersfoort car, Verstappen pushed a fraction too hard, brushed a barrier and was flung into the unforgiving wall and his qualifying was over.
“Stay out of the walls,” said Verstappen, when asked after if he learned anything.
Verstappen ended up 24th on the grid for the Sunday race as critics lined up to tell Red Bull they had been wrong to entrust an F1 seat to someone so raw.
But an inspired Verstappen surged through the field to finish seventh on a track where overtaking is notoriously difficult, taking the honours for the fastest lap.
Had the race been a few laps longer, he may have even made the podium in his final F3 outing before his leap to F1 and three world titles.
The winner was Rosenqvist, who repeated that Macau victory a year later ahead of another famous F1 name, Charles Leclerc.
Also in the Macau race in 2014 were future F1 drivers Esteban Ocon, Antonio Giovinazzi and Nicholas Latifi, such was the talent on display.
“I remember being very nervous,” recalled Rosenqvist of the 2014 race in comments provided to AFP this week.
“I told myself before the start that if I can handle this kind of pressure, then it’s going to be something good for me.”
‘Fast out of the box’
So it proved, as the Swede went on to become IndyCar Rookie of the Year in 2019 and has driven in the premier US series ever since.
Persson, who has attended the Macau Grand Prix since 2010, handles Rosenqvist’s PR and said he was privileged to have a front-row seat as Verstappen burst on the scene.
“I attended every race in the 2014 F3 championship with Felix. It was definitely very unique,” said Persson.
“The kind of drivers that were racing in F3 were very, very good racers. And they’d been doing it for years.
“Verstappen came in and was extremely fast out of the box.”
All but five of the 20 drivers on the F1 grid in Las Vegas next weekend have cut their teeth in Macau, including seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton.
“None of the current F1 drivers have won here,” noted Persson.
“It says a bit about the challenge and the complexity of this race that you can be super fast, like Max was, but one mistake at the wrong time of the weekend and it’s gone.”
Verstappen can cement a fourth consecutive Formula One world championship in Las Vegas next week, 10 years after wowing fans in another neon-lit Casino city.
There, but for a single mistake, he could have fulfilled his dream to write his name in lights alongside Senna and Schumacher.