After stroming to pole, the odds on favourite today is Downton's Maxwell, but there are plenty of challengers to him - the Jaguars looking to push forward with Taylor, while the likes of Arrow and OSM are looking to take advantage of their sudden upturn in pace. It's set to be a trilling race, not least thanks to the narrow streets of Macau - expect plenty of safety cars. Precisely half the field went for soft tyres, the highest placed driver being van Snelheid, then Bergkvist. Taylor and Zozulya opted for mediums, along with both Lada's and Einarrson - Matthews, McLaughlin and Klien. 5 drivers decided to go for the extreme end of durability, including pole sitter Maxwell. Also on the hards were Hutchinson, Stokey, Vocquelin and Michiko. It was a poor getaway for Maxwell when the lights went out, perhaps due to his hard tyres, and Taylor was immediately into the lead. His compatriot was left to try and fend off van Snelheid, but the Dutchman was through on the inside, moving into second. Hutchinson also fell to Zozulya, while Bergkvist dispatched both OSMs quickly. Zvironas also passed Stokey, as did Yoshida who made up two places. Domenicalli crashed at turn 9, though his car was recovered before the field came back around. He was soon joined by Ostberg, who's hydraulics failed on lap 2. While overtaking proved to be difficult, Zozulya was able to relegate Maxwell down to 4th on lap 3, with an impressive pass at the turn 20 hairpin.
Most overtakes were thanks to the hard tyre runners dropping back - Hutchinson was passed by Bergkvist, then Matthews, while Stokey was overtaken by not only a group of soft tyred runners, but also McLaughlin and Hudson. Up front, van Snelheid passed Taylor for the lead, but was almost immediately into the pits, on lap 6, along with the rest of the soft runners. Good work from Fusion saw Zvironas jump Bergkvist, while Yoshida had a sticky wheel and dropped behind Kasami and Ellington - the Highwind overtaking the K8ley later on the out-lap. That seemed to work perfectly when on lap 7, Vocquelin binned it at the Fishermen's Bend. It wasn't too much of an issue to recover the car but medium runners were due in on lap 8, dropping the likes of Taylor and Zozulya to the back - interestingly, slow stops for Matthews and Einarrson dropped them behind McLaughlin and Klien respectively. The race restarted on lap 10 and van Snelheid was passed Stokey quickly for third, while Yoshida nipped past Kasami. Van Snelheid was quickly past Hutchinson as well and breathing down Maxwell's neck, while Cesar pulled a heart stopping triple move on Yoshida, Kasami and Thunder. The race was neutralised again however with Alaniz out due to suspected crashing issues on lap 11. Both soft and hard runners were due in on lap 12, and they all dropped behind the medium runners, leaving Taylor leading from Zozulya and McLaughlin. The safety car was in at the end of lap 13 and the racing was back underway. Maxwell reacted poorly to the safety car restart and was quickly passed by van Snelheid and Hutchinson, though he still fared better than Stokey, who almost free fell down the order, losing 4 places in 3 laps. Surprisingly however, van Snelheid's charge fizzeled as he struggled to overtake Einarrson - the Icelander putting in a bit of a defensive masterclass as he made his Renault as wide as possible, allowing the top medium runners to pull away. It was unfortunately over when Einarrson had to retire with a suspected water leak on lap 17, which was then overshadowed by Ellington continuing his 100% crashing record this year by going off at turn 14. Another safety car and another shake up in the order - medium and soft tyre runners pitted on lap 18, leaving all the hards ahead of all the mediums ahead of all the softs. This left Hutchinson leading from Maxwell and Stokey. Michiko, not last on a rare occasion, was 4th, followed by Taylor, Zozulya and McLaughlin - notably, Matthews jumped Hudson in the pits. Klien followed, then van Snelheid - first on the softs - then Zvironas, Cesar and Bergkvist, after the Brazilian passed the Swede in the pitlane. The race restarted on lap 20 and Michiko dropped back at an impressive rate of 3 places a lap. Zozulya bossed Taylor out of his way on the restart and stormed through the hard runners to take the lead with 3 laps still left, as Hutchinson and Maxwell desperately tried to hang onto the podium. McLaughlin and Taylor dispatched of Stokey, the Jaguar behind the Mitsubishi after Zozulya's overtake, while Hudson was back ahead of Matthews. Surprisingly, none of the soft runners could make an impact, unable to past Klien. Maxwell pulled off a late divebomb on Hutchinson to take 2nd on lap 23, but it left the pair vulnerable to the two behind - sure enough, McLaughlin and Taylor passed them. Taylor went on to replicate Maxwell's move on McLaughlin to snatch 2nd on the final lap. Stokey was overtaken by Hudson and waved through Matthews in order to not hold up his teammate, but defended well against Klien, while some late moves from Cesar pushed him into the top 10 at the expense of van Snelheid. Michiko meanwhile began to struggle and only lose 1.66 positions a lap. Kasami retired with a loss of power on lap 23. At the front, after a couple of poor races, his bold move paid off as Zozulya crossed the line to win for the first time as a Downton driver. An angry Taylor still secured an important 2nd, while McLaughlin took great advantage of the safety cars to take a podium. 4th for Maxwell was a disappointment, ahead of Hutchinson. Hudson's 6th keeps him in the title lead, as OSM secured their first ever points with Matthews 7th and Stokey 8th, bringing them out of Q1. Klien brought home 9th as Cesar rounded out the points finishers.
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