Sato, who easily took the British F3 title this season gave a spectacular display to claim victory in his penultimate F3 outing.

Earlier this week Sato, who will drive alongside Giancarlo Fisichella at Jordan in 2002, said that a win in Macau would be a perfect springboard to his new challenges in F1, although it was not as easy as he would have liked. He explained, "The perfect weekend would be like the Marlboro Masters in Zandvoort where I completely dominated the two qualifying days and then won the race. This time I felt a bit different because I didn't do the quickest time in qualifying."

Sato edged ahead of pole position man Bjorn Wirdheim after a safety car period in the first race of the day and narrowly beat the Swede by less than two seconds after 15 laps around the former Portuguese island colony.
In the second leg Sato asserted his superiority after a lightening start from the grid, despite heavy early pressure from Italy's Paolo Montin.

With Sato winning the second leg by over four seconds, the Japanese comfortably took the aggregate victory ahead of Benoit Treluyer, whose second in leg two pushed him clear of rookie Wirdheim.