GP3 front-runner Callum Ilott will be reunited with Carlin for a return to F3 at the Macau Grand Prix next month. The 2017 Qualification Race winner, who hasn’t driven in the F3 category since last year’s event, will race with the team that he made his Macau debut with back in 2015.

After challenging for the GP3 title through the year, the attraction of the unpredictable street circuit saw Ilott accept the chance to return for the 65th running of the event. “The real appeal is the challenge of the track – I just love it.  It’s given me some highs and lows over the last three years;  I’ve kissed the trophies and the walls and I am still coming back again,” says Ilott. “It’s unique; it can be rewarding, frustrating and even cruel but when it all comes together, a decent lap around there is like nothing else.”

After a podium in 2016 and winning with an eight second lead on Saturday in 2017, the Ferrari Academy Driver says he feels the need to return to the former Portuguese enclave. “To have led that Saturday race last year and gapped it, and then not have the closure of the win on Sunday last year is most definitely unfinished business for me.  It’s one of those races that’s now a personal target to win. I know Trevor and the Carlin team well from 2015 and they also came close to winning in the crazy race last November. This could be the last year that the current generation of F3 cars compete at Macau so it would be special to get the result together, a team I started in F3 with. I’m sure we can be right in the mix.”

“We are pleased to welcome Callum back to the team who we last worked with in 2015,” says Trevor Carlin. “He competed with us in FIA F3 so has great experience in the car and took pole position at the event last year – it’s definitely somewhere that he’s got good pace and a score to settle.”

The Macau GP will take place from the 14th to the 18th November ahead of Ilott’s final GP3 race in Abu Dhabi one week later. “The F3 Dallara is a car that’s been such a big part of my racing career,” adds Ilott. “It’s an unpredictable event, anything can happen, but winning at Macau would be a nice way to sign off my time with that car.”