Another racer dies in Macau Grand Prix crash

HONG KONG A second driver has been killed in as many days during qualifying at the Macau Grand Prix.

Race organizers said Hong Kong touring car driver Phillip Yau Wing-choi died Friday, one day after Portuguese motorcycle rider Luis Filipe de Sousa Carreira died in a crash during qualifying for his event.

Yau, who drove for the Look Fong team, crashed on the Mandarin Bend at the Guia Circuit.

Yau's Chevrolet Cruze went wide as it came around the right-hand bend and slammed into the crash barriers on the left side of the track. The car, with its left side crumpled, scraped along the barrier and flames burst out from the bottom.

Rescuers had to cut open the car to remove Yau, organizers said. He was taken to a hospital but declared dead 27 minutes after arrival.

Despite the two fatalities, organizers defended the safety of the street circuit and said none of the weekend's remaining events would be canceled.

"I don't think there is any question about the track, it has existed as it is for 60 years," race co-ordinator Joao Manuel Costa Antunes told the South China Morning Post.