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PDB Racing Team, represented by Manuel Renaudie on the Daytona Gillard chassis, flew to Macau for the Macau Grand prix with high expectations, confident of the positive results of the tests made over the past few months. Already from free practice, PDB team principal Peter de Bruijn, also acting as Renaudie’s mechanic for the occasion, was confident on the high chances of a podium finish.

During the qualifying session, Manuel suffered technical problems on the front brakes, which didn’t allow him to squeeze in the top-5 position. For the heats, the only goal was to get a good starting grid position for the finals. With the new starting procedure, chaos ruled at the green lights. Drivers in the back were flying past to the front with much greater speed than the front runners, causing mayhem at turn 1. In the first heat, after losing a few positions at the start, Renaudie recovered well to finish 4th. In heat 2, Manuel was once again caught in the chaos, dropping down to the back of the field but fighting his way back to 12th.

For the pre-final, Renaudie secured 8th on the starting grid. Thai driver Tanart Sathienthirakul was another PDB Racing Team driver struggling with the start, though unable to race away from the traffic, and forced to start the pre-final from 14th on grid. The start of the pre-final was again untidy, with back markers shooting recklessly upfront. Renaudie was forced off the top-20 and had to fight his way back in the 17-lap pre-final. But the French
driver managed a brilliant comeback ending 6th, also setting the second fastest lap. Tanart also showed great speed on his new Daytona, climbing up from 14th to 8th.

In the final, a podium finish was in sight. After another messy start, Renaudie managed to keep away from chaos, and stopped once again the second fastest lap, going on to claim 3rd place.