Schumacher and Hakkinen’s clash at the Macau Grand Prix, and other tales; city’s upgraded racing museum reopens
- Macau Grand Prix winners recall their historic victories and disappointments in the famous street race
- The refurbished Grand Prix museum has interactive displays and virtual reality racing stations
Motorsport great Mika Hakkinen is leaning into view across a table at home in Monaco as he’s asked to take his mind back to Macau and talk about the experiences he had racing around its streets in the annual Grand Prix for which the city is famous.
That Hakkinen has returned to the past – in an instant – is obvious because he’s now raised his hands, like he is once again gripping a steering wheel. He’s driving his Formula 3 car while he talks, taking us through the twists and the turns and the memories of a street-racing course that has, over its 67-year history, tested the very best drivers from the world of motorsport.
“When you don’t have a good car it is hell. But when you have a good car it is paradise,” says Hakkinen, now 52. “The whole motor racing world talks about it, so I had listened to those stories before I arrived, but being there for the first time was just incredible. I felt like there was a kind of movie mystery to the city, like it almost doesn’t feel real. I felt that there is something special that you can’t touch.”
This past month has seen the soft opening of the new-look Macao Grand Prix Museum, which opened in 1993 and is fresh from an estimated 479 million pataca (US$60 million) upgrade that started in 2017.
