Photo: Christian Hartung

Duncan Huisman celebrates record fifth win at Macau

By winning the Volkswagen Scirocco R China Masters race at Macau this weekend, Duncan Huisman matches Rob Huff’s and Edoardo Mortara’s achievement of five wins at the Guia circuit, though the Italian will have the opportunity to jump back ahead tomorrow starting from the front row for the GT Cup race, while Huff will have a more difficult challenge from fourth on the grid for the WTCC.

Huisman won the Guia Race for three years in a row from 2001 to 2003 with Carly Motors, and then on the WTCC’s first event in Macau in 2005 for RBM, and now adds to his tally with the one-off Masters Challenge event this weekend.

“It’s great. I had some unfinished business here,” said Huisman. “In 2007 I had to let Andy (Priaulx) through in race one when I was comfortably in P8, which would have given me pole for race two…so it’s great to have the opportunity by Volkswagen, Barry (Bland), and Macau to come for this 60th edition and enjoy this race and take the victory.”

“I put all the focus on the start as it was very important to get P1 before Mandarin, as I knew that Nicola (Larini) and I were the only ones going flat-out through Mandarin,” he said. “It was important to get ahead of Alain (Menu) at the start…and it worked quite well. I did about seven or eight practice starts yesterday to get (used to the car), so it paid off.

Nicola Larini finished in second place, making a good start in the Scirocco to also get ahead of Alain Menu, but was unable to challenge Huisman for the victory.

“To be on the podium (I’m happy), but I was here to try and win,” said Larini. “Today was quite difficult. The problem started yesterday when I didn’t have a great qualifying, as we lost the last five minutes of qualifying due to the red flag and I couldn’t improve my lap.

“If you don’t do any mistakes here, you can control the race easily. I did the best I could, I drove every lap as though it was qualifying, but (Huisman) did the same, so there was no way for me to try and overtake him.”