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Macau F3 Q&A: Will Buller on his 2012 ambitions

In the build up to this year's Macau F3 Grand Prix, AUTOSPORT's F3 reporter Marcus Simmons will interview some of the contenders of a top-quality entry

The competition is ferocious, not least in defending champion Daniel Juncadella, bidding to emulate Edoardo Mortara as a two-time winner of the event.

With a brace of European titles in the bag in 2012, as well as victory in the Masters, the Spaniard is the first man since Takuma Sato in 2001 to simultaneously hold the F3 Triple Crown of Macau, Zandvoort and championship. Now he needs to emulate the Japanese driver by doing them all in the same calendar year.

He's not the only Prema Powerteam driver to watch out for however. Raffaele Marciello may be making his first visit to Macau, but has already won on street circuits at Pau and Norisring this year, while Hannes van Asseldonk was the top Macau rookie last season.

Then there's the six-strong Carlin superteam. British F3 champion Jack Harvey makes the trip east, but is the only one of Carlin's line-up never to have raced on the Asian streets. Among his team-mates, Antonio Felix da Costa is on a stunning roll of success, Felipe Nasr was runner-up last year and Carlos Sainz Jr won in Macau in Formula BMW.

As the build up gathers momentum, AUTOSPORT sits down with Brit Will Buller.

Q. Including your first visit in Formula BMW, this is your fourth time in Macau. What do you think of the event?

Will Buller: It's something else really. This circuit has to be one of my favourites. I raced in Monaco this year in GP3 but this track is fantastic for single-seaters and perfect for F3 cars. The whole week and build-up are impressive, and I'm happy to have the experience coming back here.

Q. Has your Macau experience prepared you to do well this time?

WB: I won in the BMW, and I was sixth last year in F3 [with Fortec Motorsport]. So it's not been too bad. But this year I'm really in it to win it. It's a standalone race; we're not here to score championship points and it's just going to be all down to Sunday's race.

Q. How has the preparation gone for Macau?

WB: We had a good test at Silverstone. Everyone at Carlin has been working really hard. We struggled a little bit in the Euro Series but a lot of effort has gone into this.

Q. Why was it a struggle in Euro Series?

WB: We had a few car problems. We didn't get our heads fully around the aero so we didn't get on top of the new Dallara as much as we should have. But the test at Silverstone was great - the car felt better than it has done all year, even though we had a Macau set-up on that didn't suit the track. We ran on the Yokohama tyres - it will be a different tyre they make for this weekend, but better to test on a different Yokohama than on Hankook [that is used in the Euro Series] or Cooper [British F3].

Q. What do you make of Carlin's all-star line-up for Macau?

WB: Trevor Carlin is very determined to win it, and he's made that statement with his driver choice. If you're the top Carlin driver, you're not going to be far away from winning. Also, I've been doing some Formula Renault 3.5 testing with Fortec and Comtec so that extra mileage will help coming into this weekend.

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