The TOM'S team were looking for their third Macau win in succession, after Oliver Jarvis and Keisuke Kunimoto won the race in the previous two years.

During the session, four drivers hit the wall, including all three Fortec Motorsport cars, and the Prema Powerteam machine of Daniel Zampieri.

Having been usurped by those late runs, Mortara and Hartley wound up third and fourth, ahead of the first ART Grand Prix car of Sam Bird.

[4] Manor Motorsport cars filled row six with Carlos Huertas just shading Roberto Merhi by just 0.027 seconds, which put them ahead of the third Carlin of Max Chilton, the Räikkönen Robertson duo of Renger van der Zande (14th) and Alexander Sims (16th), with somewhat surprisingly, Formula 3 Euro Series champion Jules Bianchi splitting the pair, in fifteenth position.

[4] Ericsson's team-mate Takuto Iguchi was the fastest of the Japanese trio in seventeenth, ahead of Kei Cozzolino, Wayne Boyd, Koki Saga, Jake Rosenzweig, Yuji Kunimoto (the brother of 2008 winner Keisuke) and the Kolles & Heinz Union pair of Stef Dusseldorp and Alexandre Imperatori.

Rounding out the thirty runners were local favourite Michael Ho, British Formula 3 National Class champion Daniel McKenzie, the unwell Henry Arundel, Víctor García, Kevin Chen and Zampieri, who did not set a time after his crash in the earlier practice session.

After topping the first qualifying session, Ericsson continued his form into second practice, recording the fastest lap in the history of the Macau Guia Circuit.

[9] His lap of 2:10.042 put him on pole position, despite hitting the barriers at Matsuya close to the end of qualifying, and damaging his rear wing.

The two remaining ART Grand Prix cars adorned row four with Bianchi edging out Bird, while the top ten was completed by Coletti and Mäki.

Merhi's twelfth-fastest time put him thirteenth in the classification, ahead of Sims, van der Zande, Kunimoto, Chilton and Boyd.

Rosenzweig, Cozzolino, Zampieri, García, Saga, Dusseldorp, Imperatori, Arundel, McKenzie, Ho and Chen completed the grid.

After hitting the wall on countless occasions over the previous two days, Chen was withdrawn from the race due to a cracked monocoque.

Further back, Bianchi rode over the rear wheel of Mortara at San Francisco,[12] causing enough damage for the Frenchman to pit.

[14] This left the order as Ericsson, Vernay, Mortara (who moved up despite his collision), Bottas, Ricciardo, Vanthoor, Bird, Coletti, Mäki and Hartley.

[14] At the lap four restart, Vernay made ground up on Ericsson, and managed to slipstream past the All-Japan Formula Three champion on the run to Lisboa.

Running in eleventh position,[15] the young Ulsterman pulled out to pass his team-mate Mäki on the exit of the Mandarin, but clipped the car's left rear wheel at 170 mph.

Boyd's Dallara became airborne and was launched into a frightening aerial somersault, landing upside down before righting itself via a hit with the retaining wall.

Ericsson was second ahead of Mortara – once he had returned the place back to the Swede[18] – with Bottas, Vanthoor, Ricciardo, Bird, Iguchi, Merhi and Mäki completing the top ten.

[13] Outside the top ten were van der Zande, Kunimoto, Sims, García, Chilton, Cozzolino, Dusseldorp, Saga, Huertas, Zampieri, Bianchi and Coletti after their respective collisions, Imperatori, Hartley, McKenzie and Ho rounded out the 26 classified finishers.

Ricciardo was fourth ahead of Bottas, van der Zande, Sims, Chilton, Merhi and the qualification race winner Vernay.

Due to damage inflicted in his spectacular accident the previous day, Boyd did not start, thus leaving the grid at 28 cars.

[22] Behind them, Vanthoor left his braking far too late for Lisboa, and mounted over Chilton,[22] which caused the teenage Briton to retire on the spot.

[23] Ricciardo's clip with the wall caused a left-rear puncture,[22] but he managed to carry on up the hill, until he crashed at the entrance to the Solitude Esses.

[25] Vanthoor, with a damaged front wheel after his collision with Chilton, stopped just short of the accident site, and was thus able to continue in the race.

[23][24] For the ensuing laps, Vernay was doing what he had to do to keep his team-mate, who had stepped back from GP2 to rid himself of his close defeat to Keisuke Kunimoto in the previous year's race.

[26] Sims had also dropped to the tail of the field, after a move on Cozzolino failed, and he made an unscheduled trip up the Lisboa escape road.

[23] Mortara started charging back towards Vernay, and in the process, broke the Frenchman's lap record set the day before.

[23][24] Bird took fourth from Ericsson on the same lap, and looked set to finish behind team-mate Bottas; a far cry from his first-lap exit in 2008 after being taken out by Räikkönen Robertson Racing's Roberto Streit on the run to Mandarin.

[31] This promoted the second TOM'S car of Iguchi into sixth, ahead of van der Zande, Mäki, Kunimoto and Bianchi, who made the top ten at Merhi's expense, making up eleven positions in fifteen laps.