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Macau Race 2: Classic win for Couto

Andre Couto delivered the perfect result in front of his home crowd in the Macau Grand Prix on Sunday when he fought off intense pressure from Italian Paulo Montin to claim victory

The Opel Team BSR driver beat pole position man Pierre Kaffer, winner of the day's opening race, away from the line to head the field into Lisboa Corner.

Kaffer put Couto under intense pressure until he too found himself having to defend his place from Montin. On lap five, Montin managed to get in Kaffer's slipstream as they headed down the main straight into Lisboa corner and moved to the outside line. He was able to brake moments later than Kaffer to seize second place.

From there, Montin was immediately right onto the tail of Couto and on laps seven and eight he had his best chances to get past Couto as they braked into Lisboa. But Montin could not make the moves stick and when the Safety Car was called out on lap 13, following Robert Lechner's crash into the barriers at the final corner, there was nothing Montin could do to deny Couto a famous victory.

"I feel really, really happy," said the delighted Couto. "This is a great result. It was difficult to achieve this, and it is just great. I was leading with Paulo behind me and just concentrated on not making any mistakes. When I saw the Safety Car I thought it wasn't a good moment because the rest of the field could close up, but when I saw the man with the Last Lap board I realised I had won."

Montin was far from disappointed about not having a chance to challenge Couto in the closing stages. "I am very happy with this result," he explained. "This second place is the best of the year for me. I don't know if I could have got past him at the end, because I would only have had two more chances to overtake him."

Behind the leading duo, Ryo Fukuda showed improved pace to snatch third place from Kaffer on lap eight. And although he was able to follow Montin closely, he was never really able to launch a serious challenge on parts of the circuit where he could overtake.

Italian Enrico Toccacelo was delighted with his fifth place position, just ahead of South Africa's Tomas Scheckter. Briton Ben Collins finished seventh with compatriot Andy Priaulx eighth.

Indian Narain Karthikeyan, who led the first race before crashing, was able to start the event from the tail of the field and managed to finish 13th, taking fastest lap in the process. His Carlin Motorsport team-mate, Takuma Sato, finished 14th after crashing out of the first race at Lisboa.


1 Andre Couto (Dallara F399 Spiess Opel) 39m48.758s
2 Paulo Montin (Dallara F399 Spiess Opel) +1.110s
3 Ryo Fukuda (Dallara F399 Sodemo Renault) +4.004s
4 Pierre Kaffer (Dallara F300 Spiess Opel) +4.652s
5 Enrico Toccacelo (Dallara F300 Spiess Opel) +6.073s
6 Tomas Scheckter (Dallara F399 Spiess Opel) +6.748s
7 Ben Collins (Dallara F300 Spiess Opel) +7.050s
8 Andy Priaulx (Dallara F300 Mugen Honda) +7.466s
9 Tiago Montiero (Dallara F399 Sodemo Renault) +9.162s
10 Patrick Friesacher (Dallara F399 Spiess Opel) +9.403s

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