The wax figures of eight renowned racers were revealed yesterday during an unveiling ceremony held at the Macau Grand Prix Museum in Zape.
British rider Michael Rutter, nine-time Macau Motorcycle Grand Prix champion, and British racer Robert Huff, 10-time winner of Touring Car Races, also attended the ceremony as guests.
The figures are displayed in a joint venture between the Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO) and Madame Tussauds Hong Kong. According to MGTO, each figure cost around two million patacas, including future maintenance, totalling around 16 million patacas.
In her speech at the ceremony, MGTO Director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes pointed out that visitors from all over the world are again welcomed to Macau with the removal of COVID-19 travel curbs. She noted that as the Macau Grand Prix marks its 70th anniversary this year, the figures’ debut was a great marketing opportunity that could also help continue the Macau Grand Prix’s history and culture.
The figures are displayed beside vehicles they raced in and on at the Macau Grand Prix, comprising John Macdonald, Ron Haslam, Ayrton Senna da Silva, Sebastian Vettel, Rutter, Lewis Hamilton, Huff, and Edoardo Mortara.
The replicas of Macdonald, Haslam, Rutter, Huff and Mortara were made by Madame Tussauds especially for the project, while the figures of Senna, Hamilton and Vettel were recast.
As a special arrangement, the museum, which is normally closed on Tuesdays, will be open today. It is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Ticketing details can be found at mgpm.macaotourism.gov.mo/en.
Huff & Rutter talk about this year’s GP
During the Racer Wax Figures Unveiling Ceremony, Huff said that to make the wax model he had to sit very still for eight or nine hours while over 200 measurements of his body were taken. When asked by Head of Sales and Marketing of Madame Tussauds Hong Kong BoBo Yu what he liked best about his model, Huff said: “The waist and the eyes”
Speaking to The Macau Post Daily afterwards, Huff said, “I shall be back [to race in the Macau Grand Prix] this year to continue with the challenge. Of the three years [of the pandemic lockdown] I only missed 2021. In 2020 I was lucky and honoured to be the only international driver invited to race and in 2022 one of seven or eight international drivers asked to come.”
When asked if he knew who he would be racing for, Huff said, “I don’t know yet, but I shall be back as I want to give the [Macau Grand Prix] Museum work to keep updating my records.”
When asked how he had maintained the pose with his arms aloft for his wax model, Huff said, “I have been told that that is my most used pose but I only had to hold it for 20 minutes while they made a frame so that I could rest my arms on it while they continued.”
He went on to say that “the model was made at [Madame Tussauds] in London, and it was interesting to go behind the scenes of somewhere I had visited with my family as a child.”
Rutter said during the ceremony: “Thank you, I am most honoured to be chosen to have a wax figure made of me, it is like looking into my own eyes, it is very special. The features are striking, it is fantastic.”
When asked by The Macau Post Daily after the ceremony of he was coming to race this year, Rutter said he would, he added, “Yes, I was last here in 2019, I missed being here so much, I watched the races on the computer and wished I was there.”
He went on to say, “It is a long time since any English racers were here [three years, although there were four British racers in Macau last year].
When asked if he would be aiming for his 10th win, Rutter said, “I am getting older [he will be 51 come this year’s Macau Motorcycle Grand Prix] and there a lot of very good young riders coming through, so it will not be so easy.”
When asked if his great rival Peter Hickman would be coming, Rutter said, “He might be, and he could be my team mate again.”
Rutter also said that he had no idea what bike he would be riding, “but hopefully it will come together and I shall have a team.”
Rutter (from left to right), MGTO Director Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes and Huff pose for a group photo with the two racers’ newly unveiled wax figures. – Photo: Lesley Wells
British driver Robert Huff poses with his wax figure.
British rider Michael Rutter poses with his wax figure. – Photos: Rui Pastorin
