Qualifying for the Macau Grand Prix Road Sports Challenge took place on Friday, November 15, with the Knight Sports Van Iek Racing-entered Mazda RX-8 of Tatsuya Tanigawa claiming second place.

Clear skies were the order of the day, and despite it being November, the temperature stood at over 20 degrees, warm enough to bring on a sweat. The 30-minute official qualifying started at 10:10am, with all of the cars pushing intensely from the opening moments of the session.

The mountainside portion of the Macau street circuit is narrow, and presents few passing points. Conversely, on the ocean-facing side, the track is comparatively wider, and is where the cars get up to their highest speeds. It is therefore a critical section for the more powerful cars. The brevity of the session meant that a few of the machines were still checking their set-ups whilst also trying to qualify for the race.

Tanigawa separated himself from the strong local entrants and the second group of cars to begin his attack, but in the mountainside section, got caught behind slower machines and was unable to get a clear lap. Even so, on the ocean-facing side of the street track he recorded the top lap time, allowing him to claw back some of the earlier loss. However, this was still good enough for only second place. He was still two seconds away from the pole-snatching time.

Team representative Nakamura said,“Our rivals are fast. It is difficult for us to catch them in qualifying. However, the race itself is different. Last year, we climbed from dead last to trailing a step behind the top group, then our differential broke and we had to stop midway. In response to that, this year we fitted a differential cooler and a pressurized lubrication system, so we have no worries right now. All that's left is for the drivers to do their best. We've done all that we can do.” Tanigawa commented, “I wasn't able to get a totally clear lap, so I'm a little frustrated, but a start from the inside of the front row isn't bad. It's just our cars on the front row, so there's no need to worry about the start.”

The race (10 laps) gets underway at 09:50 on Saturday, November 16th.