Félix da Costa led every lap of the meeting, to take Carlin's first victory in Macau since Takuma Sato won the 2001 edition of the race.

[14] His closest challenger was Mücke Motorsport's Felix Rosenqvist ahead of three of Nasr's Carlin teammates: Félix da Costa, Carlos Sainz Jr. and William Buller.

[14] Defending champion Juncadella was sixth for Prema Powerteam, ahead of the best-placed Macau debutant Pascal Wehrlein.

[18][19] Alex Lynn, in his last appearance for Fortec Motorsport before moving to the Prema Powerteam in 2013,[20] was best rookie in fourth place having held the lead of the session at one point,[19] while Juncadella rounded out the top five.

[19] Nasr finished the session in sixth place ahead of Sims and Prema Powerteam's Raffaele Marciello – the winner of the other invitational Formula Three race held on a street circuit, at Pau in France – with Félix Serrallés and Wehrlein rounding out the top ten.

[21] Following them were Abt, Tom Blomqvist with Pipo Derani and Hannes van Asseldonk provisionally lining up on row seven.

Buller, a former Formula BMW Pacific winner at Macau, was next up ahead of Harry Tincknell, Jazeman Jaafar, Harvey, Sven Müller and Korjus.

[25] Korjus continued his progression up the time-sheets with the fourth-fastest time, while Sainz completed the top five in the session ahead of Wehrlein,[25] the best of the rookies.

[27] When the session did start, the anticipated rain showers had not materialised, and Nasr moved to the top of the time-sheets before the first of three red flags for a crash by Serrallés.

The top ten was completed by Marciello; behind him, the top twenty qualifiers were rounded off by van Asseldonk, Derani, Harvey, Sims, Serrallés, Blomqvist, Buller, Yuichi Yamauchi, Jaafar, Müller Hirakawa and Roda's grid penalties were effectively rendered meaningless as they qualified at the rear of the grid.

"I've felt really confident this whole weekend, we've proven today that we have great pace and we're able to break the tow to the car behind easily.

[34] Juncadella set the qualification race's fastest time on the fourth lap, completing a circuit in two minutes 13.718 seconds.

[1] Ultimately, it was Félix da Costa that took victory by 1.5 seconds[36] and pole position for the Grand Prix itself,[30] and was joined on the front row by Rosenqvist, while Lynn completed the podium after a quiet race.

Behind him, Sainz managed to hold off the others in his group to finish fourth ahead of Juncadella, Tincknell, Wehrlein, van Asseldonk, Nasr and Sims.

[37] Outside the top ten, Marciello finished eleventh ahead of Harvey, Derani, Buller, Abt, Yamauchi, Blomqvist, Jaafar, Mitchell Gilbert, Korjus, Auer, Sá Silva, Hirakawa, Dennis van de Laar and Lucas Wolf rounded out the 26 classified finishers.

[3] For the second day running, it was Rosenqvist that made the best start out of the front-runners, taking the lead from Félix da Costa on the run to the Mandarin corner,[38] but Félix da Costa regained the lead under braking for Lisboa turn in a carbon-copy move to his first lap start in the qualification race.

The field made it cleanly out of Lisboa corner, before Sá Silva spun at the top of San Francisco Hill turn and nearly blocked the circuit while trying to return his car to the direction of the track.

[41] Racing resumed at the end of the fifth lap, with Félix da Costa holding onto the lead from Rosenqvist, despite pressure all the way to Lisboa turn from the pit straight.

[40] At the front, Félix da Costa had enough of an advantage to just about negate any threat that Rosenqvist could have made with the slipstream while Lynn continued his Macau initiation with a solid third place with Wehrlein doing likewise in fourth.

Down the order, Harvey was another retiree in the pit lane due to front wing damage suffered on his Carlin car.