British racer Dan Ticktum has an opportunity to get his career back on track after landing a plum Macau Grand Prix drive with Carlin. The 20-year-old will also attempt to become the first driver to win the race in three successive years.

Ticktum’s junior career has been one of the more tumultuous of recent times. A front-runner in MSA Formula (now FIA F4) in 2015, he received a two-year ban (12 months suspended) following an incident at Silverstone that September, when he rammed rival Ricky Collard off the road during a safety car period. He returned at the end of 2016, with a couple of F3 outings, and attracted Red Bull support for a full European Formula Renault campaign the following year. After taking one win en route to seventh in the standings, he returned to F3 with Motopark at Macau – and swept from third to first at the final corner as rivals Sérgio Sette Câmara and Ferdinand Habsburg crashed out.

He finished second to Mick Schumacher in the 2018 FIA F3 series before romping to his second Macau victory. Ineligible for the vacant Toro Rosso F1 seat taken by Alex Albon because he had yet to accumulate sufficient superlicence qualifying points, Ticktum switched to the Japan-based Super Formula championship with Team Mugen. After struggling through the opening three rounds, however, he lost his race seat and was axed from the Red Bull programme.

He has no previous experience of the latest FIA F3 cars, but said: “I wasn’t sure I’d have the chance to return to Macau, so to be able to come back with Carlin is very exciting. Macau is the most incredible circuit and I’ve been a winner there in the past, so that is obviously the aim again.”

digital extra