It was a 24-carat performance, worthy of his Formula 1 ambitions-the icing on the cake, and a supreme moment to top off a remarkable title-winning 1983 season for Ayrton Senna in the British Formula 3 Championship.

Driving a Ralt RT3 with a Toyota engine on board - the only time in his career that the legendary Brazilian relied on Toyota power for success - Senna arrived at Macao, then a tiny Portuguese enclave nestling on the coast of mainland China. He departed a few days later having utterly dominated Macao's famous F3 road race in a style seldom matched before or since, a sign predicting the driver's illustrious career in the F1 series.

Senna, Berger and Brundle: A Battle of Giants

The Macao GP
After the completion of F3 championships around the world, the top ranking pilots from each series are invited to participate in this annual event. This historic race has been run 51 times over history. The race implemented the F3 specification beginning in 1983.

The Macao entry list in '83 contained some terrific up and coming names. There was Senna, of course, and his future McLaren F1teammate, Gerhard Berger. Martin Brundle, the man Ayrton had outpaced to the British F3 title was there, and so was Indy Car ace Roberto Guerrero and Jean-Louis Schlesser, soon to be a sportscar world champion.
Senna's performance in the British championship had certainly established him as clear favorite for this blue-ribbon event on the challenging Guia road circuit around the Macao waterfront.

Senna's car, together with those of Brundle and Guerrero, was run by Teddy Yip's Marlboro-backed Theodore Racing team.

A hugely charismatic and popular personality, Yip had stakes in the Shadow and Ensign F1 teams at various times over the past 25 years, as well as running his own Theodore Racing outfit in the sport's most senior category. Yip was without doubt the most remarkable motor racing entrepreneur in that part of the world, having competed himself in several Macao races as long ago as '56 with a Jaguar XK120. He scored a personal best result with third place in '63.

He later achieved worldwide media attention when he celebrated his 70th birthday with a $1 million ()630,000), four-day party at the luxurious Princess Hotel in the Mexican resort of Acapulco for 52 of his ex-girlfriends, along with their husbands and boyfriends!

Previously, the Macao race had been staged for Formula Atlantic cars, but by the start of '83 this category was on the wane and the Macao organisers applied to FISA, motor racing's then governing body, for permission to run it as an international Formula 2 event.

Eventually, the FISA safety inspector decreed the circuit too narrow in several places and therefore the necessary consent to run F2 cars could not be given. Instead, the only viable alternative was F3 and the Macao organising committee duly assembled a field that comprised the two top drivers from the British, European, German and Swedish F3 series, fleshed out by a handful of experienced F1 and sportscar veterans who seemed happy to stake their reputations in a battle against the sport's most promising youngsters.

An Overwhelming Two-Heat Performance for Senna and the Toyota Engine

The Macao race was held over two 15-lap heats. Surprisingly, Senna made a relatively slow start from his commanding pole position in the first of these, allowing teammate Guerrero to edge slightly into the lead by the time the pack reached the fast right-hand Yacht Club Bend on the waterfront. However, Guerrero led only as far as the tight Statue right-hander, where Senna's vast experience of contemporary F3 car performance gave him a crucial edge. He dived out of his teammate's slipstream and surged past into the lead.

"I simply couldn't believe how late he braked on cold tires," recounted an awestruck Guerrero after the race.

Senna quickly built up a three-second advantage, with Berger settling into third place, well within striking distance of the leading duo.

"Ayrton was remarkable," says Berger. "Although the three of us were all pulling away from the rest of the field, he braked so late into the corners it was almost unbelievable. He was making two or three meters on us each time. He really was driving very well."

Senna took the checkered flag six seconds ahead of Guerrero, with Berger third, followed by America's Davy Jones and Irishman Tommy Byrne.

The Macao GP was Senna's First Street Course

Millionaire Yip and the Theodore Racing Team. Drivers from left: Brundle, Senna, Guerrero.

Suffering from a combination of jet lag and the sweltering heat, Ayrton slipped back to his hotel room for a couple of hours' sleep before returning to take part in the second 15-lapper. This quick power nap' seemed to work, because the Brazilian picked up right where he had left off, accelerating straight into the lead ahead of Guerrero again. And that was the end of the story. Driving with the same calm, meticulous precision, Senna kept total control through to the end to clinch the final F3 victory of his career.

What made his success even more remarkable was that this outing at Macao had been his first taste of street racing. Unfazed, Senna drove as if he was born to do it; small wonder he would win six Monaco GPs during the course of the glittering but tragically curtailed F1 career that followed.
Senna left Macao as the winner of both heats, having started from pole both times. He also set the fastest race lap, a benchmark F3 record.

As Ian Phillips, writing in Autosport magazine at the time, summed up: "His win had pure quality and superiority written all over it. Despite the strength of the opposition, he was in a class of his own. A 24-carat conquest."