series winner, was joined in Macau by French champion Jonathan Cochet. British champion Antônio Pizzonia missed the event because of a clashing Champ Car test with Mo Nunn Racing. He was replaced at Manor Motorsport by local driver Lei Kit Meng. André Couto, an International Formula 3000 racer, and Formula Nippon's Alex Yoong were two competitors outside of F3 to receive invitations to compete at Macau. Practice and qualifying There were two half-hour practice sessions preceding the race on Sunday: one on Thursday morning and one on Friday morning. Rain fell before the start of the opening practice session which intensified as it progressed but a dry racing line appeared before its conclusion. Narain Karthikeyan was the fastest driver in the session's opening minutes and more than seven seconds faster than any other driver at one stage. His teammate Takuma Sato was fastest overall with a time of 2 minutes, 32.044 seconds. Tiago Monteiro recorded his best lap time when the dry line appeared towards the session's conclusion and was second. Seiji Ara, Karthikeyan, Patrick Friesacher, Toshihiro Kaneishi, Couto, Robert Lechner, Tomas Scheckter and Pierre Kaffer rounded out the session's top ten drivers. Ben Collins' rear wing loosened due to a sheared retaining bolt and Karthikeyan stopped at the Melco hairpin for unknown reasons. Qualifying was divided into two 45-minute sessions; the first was held on Thursday afternoon, and the second on Friday afternoon. The fastest time set by each driver from either session counted towards their final starting position for Sunday's race. The first qualifying session was held in cloudy weather conditions. Paolo Montin ran consistently within the top five and later set the provisional fastest lap of 2 minutes, 15.374 seconds with three minutes remaining. Karthikeyan was three-tenths of a second slower in provisional second; he sustained minor damage to his car's rear with minor contact with a barrier at Moorish Hill corner. Slower traffic delayed Cochet in third and lost him seven chances at a full-speed lap on the tight circuit. Sato was fourth after an engine breakage that stopped him from improving his lap time towards the end of qualifying. Lechner was fifth and Gianmaria Bruni took sixth as he crashed into a barrier at Lisboa corner near the session's conclusion. Couto, Kaffer, Ryō Fukuda and Phillipe rounded out the top ten. Peter Sundberg was the fastest driver not to qualify in the provisional top ten