The 16-year-old American proved to be the class of a highly competitive field across what was planned to be 40 minutes of running, but featured no fewer than four red flags – the last of these brought a premature end to the action, with just three minutes remaining.

Wheldon, the son of the late IndyCar champion Dan Wheldon, lay in second place behind Jules Roussel after an uninterrupted opening 16 minutes, just as drivers were beginning to enter the pits to have a new set of tyres fitted to go for glory. After two red flags in quick succession, Wheldon jumped to the top of the times, before two further stoppages prevented any further improvements.

In the end, Wheldon grabbed the top spot from Kean Nakamura-Berta by 0.136 seconds. The two drivers who will start Saturday’s qualifying race from the front row have been team-mates this season in the Italian F4 and Euro 4 championships; the London-born Japanese-Slovakian Nakamura-Berta won both titles, so Wheldon is looking to end his year with glory around the famous Guia Circuit.

Another driver in the field from Italian F4 is Emanuele Olivieri. He beat both Nakamura-Berta and Wheldon to the crown in the F4 Middle East series at the beginning of the year, and he will line up for the World Cup just behind them in third position. Sharing the second row with the Italian is Briton Thomas Bearman, who rose to prominence in qualifying to peak at the right time and ended up in fourth place.

Local Macao hero Tiago Rodrigues, the 2023 Chinese F4 champion returning to the category this weekend, qualified fifth fastest. But Rodrigues was part of the reason for the third red flag. Roussel was attempting to pass him into Lisboa Bend, but was only partly alongside – Rodrigues turned in and the contact pitched him into the barrier. Ironically, it will be Frenchman Roussel, third in his domestic F4 series in 2025, who starts alongside Rodrigues on the third row.

After failing to complete a flying lap in either free practice session, things finally improved for British F4 champion Fionn McLaughlin, and the Irish Red Bull Junior impressed to finish up in seventh place. Rintaro Sato, the son of two-time Indy 500 winner and 2001 Macau Grand Prix victor Takuma Sato, set a time good enough for sixth, but this was deleted for causing the final red flag when he crashed at Fisherman’s Bend. Sato will therefore start eighth.

GB4 champion Ary Bansal of India and Chinese F4 title winner Shimo Zhang rounded out the top 10 in qualifying.

Others involved in accidents were Alexandre Munoz, the French F4 champion causing the first stoppage; compatriot Rayan Caretti, who hit the barrier at Lisboa to trigger the second halt; and Argentinian Gino Trappa, the Central European Zone F4 champion who crashed at Paiol at the same time as the collision occurred between Roussel and Rodrigues.