The FIA F3 Intercontinental Cup race is the featured category of Macau Grand Prix and is often called as the race to decide the F3 world champion. The technical regulations of F3 are basically the same in all countries and regions and the category is regarded as a battle field mainly for the aspiring young racers. The Intercontinental Cup is fought by the leading contenders from several regional championships, including British, European and Japanese series, on the extremely challenging street track in Macau.

The regulation changes for this year meant that all F3 cars were to have the newly introduced 2000cc, normally aspirated, direct injection four cylinder engines but, in reality, only Japanese championship has been run with the new power units to date. Therefore, this year's Macau F3 race had to adopt the old spec engines to allow the competitors from other regions to join and some of the Japanese teams even ran the cars with last year's engines in the final round of the championship as a part of preparation work for Macau Grand Prix.

The race will begin with the first practice and qualifying sessions on Thursday, November 14, followed by the same set of sessions on Friday. By the consolidated result from the qualifying sessions in these two days, the starting grids for the ten lap Qualification Race on Saturday will be decided. Then the classification of this race will determine the grids for the 15 lap Final Race on Sunday, November 17, which will decide the winner of the Grand Prix.
The Grand Prix race has been run with the F3 technical regulations since 1983. From the very first year, Yokohama Tire has been appointed as the sole tire supplier for the F3 cars to support the youngsters' fights for their successful careers. The Japanese company celebrated its 30th anniversary as the official tire partner of the Grand Prix last year.

The FIA World Touring Car Championship was created in 2005 as the pinnacle of tin-top cars' race series. The series has been popular for the super close battles which sometimes lead to physical contact between the cars. It basically uses the mass production cars that are modified for racing under the FIA's Super 2000 regulations.

Even before the WTCC era, Ghia Race for the touring cars was very popular and its status was only next to the F3 Grand Prix race. Since 2005, the race has been run as the season finale of the world championship series and has naturally come to attract even more attention.

At present, the championship is fought by the cars with 1600cc turbo charged engines. Chevrolet, Honda, BMW, SEAT and Lada supply the base models that have different characteristics and drive trains - currently, only BMW adopt the rear wheel drive system, while the others have the front wheel drive - and it's not always easy to predict which car model is the fastest.

In the Macau round, the racing tends to become fiercer on the challenging street track which provides only limited overtaking opportunities. This sometimes causes a multi-car pileups, often at Lisboa Bend which is a famous accident-prone spot, and one can almost always expect the exciting and action packed races.

This year, Yvan Muller who drives a RML run Chevrolet Cruze has already secured the drivers' championship title and Honda has won the manufacturers' championship. On the other hand, the Yokohama Trophy championships for the independent teams and drivers are yet to be decided at the time of writing and they are likely to be contested until the final round at Macau. The fights for the titles will be even hotter, as the championship points for the Trophy are doubled in the season finale.

After a test session on Thursday, November 14, the official practice and the so-called knock out system qualifying sessions will be held on Friday. The result of the qualifying session will decide the starting grids for Race 1, while the top ten qualifiers in it will be placed in reversed order on the grids for Race 2. The two final races, nine laps each, are scheduled on Sunday, November 17.

Yokohama Tire has been the sole tire supplier for the championship and technically supports the exciting races in Macau again this year.

The GT Asia series has its origin in the Asian Super Car Challenge which was held in 2009. This race series attracted quite a few gentlemen drivers from the rapidly developing Asian countries and then evolved into the GT3 Asia, which used the FIA GT3 regulation cars as its name indicated, in 2010. The name was changed to GT Asia during the next year.

The FIA GT3 cars from various sports car manufacturers are now widely used in competition around the world, including the GT300 class of Super GT series in Japan. The 2013 GT Asia calendar consists of six rounds, 11 races. It started in Japan - Motegi, Okayama and Fuji - and then had the meetings in Sepang and Zhuhai before heading to the final round in Macau.

Unlike the other rounds that have the two race format, only one race will be held in the season finale. The competitors will have a practice session on Thursday, November 14, and two qualifying sessions on Friday and Saturday. The 12 lap final race will be held on Sunday, November 17.

The Macau round is named as the Macau GT Cup race and, in addition to the 19 drivers who are eligible for the GT Asia series, other 14 drivers will also take part in the race, which makes 33 strong entries in total. This means the regular GT Asia drivers may need somewhat different approaches for the race to deal with more traffic on the track.

The GT Asia series competitors rely exclusively on the tires supplied by Yokohama Tires. Other drivers have freedom of choice about tires but many of them will use the Yokohama's products in the race weekend.

**Macau Road Sport Challenge**
In short, Road Sport Challenge is the race for the modified performance road cars. Most of the participating cars are made by the Japanese manufacturers and the list includes the generations of Nissan Skyline GT-R, Mitsubishi Evolution and Subaru Impreza, and other performance models such as Mazda RX-8 or Honda S2000. In other words, they are the true performance cars that are often seen in various motor sport events.

Many of the cars are prepared by the well-known tuning garages. It looks really dynamic and exciting when these powerful performance cars go through the street circuit, using the slick tires. The competitors are free to choose the make of tires. The majority of the drivers are based in Hong Kong or Macau and, in this race, one can certainly feel the passion for the motor sport that Asian people shows.

The 10 lap race will be held on Saturday, November 16, after the practice on Thursday and the qualifying session on Friday.



**Macau Touring Car Cup**
This race category is for the S2000 cars with normally aspirated 2000cc engines. The technical regulations are virtually the same with the previous FIA Super 2000 regulations that WTCC used to adopt before it went for 1600cc turbo engines. Therefore, ex-WTCC cars such as Honda Accord, BMW 320 or Chevrolet's Lacetti and Cruze can be seen in this race, although the majority of participating cars are Honda Integra (DC5).

The cars run on the slick tires and Yokohama Tire supplies 230/610R17 size. The make of tires isn't designated but many competitors choose the Yokohama Tire's products that have a good reputation in WTCC. Actually, in last year's race, quite a few users of the Japanese manufacturer's tires achieved solid results and swept the podium.

The competitors will have the practice and qualifying sessions on November 9, Saturday, and the 12 lap race on November 10, Sunday. According to the race organizers, the number of participants in this year's race will be 28.



**MAC/HKG Interport Race**
The cars for this category may look similar with those for Macau Touring Car Cup but the MAC/HKG Interport Race cars are actually based on the FIA Group N regulations. This means fewer modifications are allowed in comparison with the S2000 cars and, for example, the wheel rim size must be same with the original road cars.

These years, virtually only two car models, Honda Integra (DC5) and Honda Civic (FD2), have been used in this race, as these models made others relatively uncompetitive under the current regulations.

Whereas the Group N car races often use the sport radial tires with grooved tread such as Yokohama Tire's ADVAN A050 for example, the Interport Race cars run on the slick tires. The competitors can choose the make of tires but the majority of them pick the Yokohama Tire's products and the Yokohama shoed drivers swept the podium also in this race last year.