"I want to say a special thanks to the Noble Group for sponsoring me to take part here, to Manor for preparing a great car for me and to my managers at CJ Motorsport for making it all possible.”

Manor team-mates Jon Lancaster and Kazuya Oshima finished eleventh and 16th respectively, with the Briton - making his competitive Manor and Macau debuts - finishing right on the tail of 2008 British F3 champion Jaime Alguersuari.

“We're very disappointed with how the race turned out for Sam, as we had the pace to be on the podium for sure - and probably fight for the win too," Manor boss John Booth commented, "The contact from Roberto ruined that.

“Jon had a decent run on his first time at Macau. He missed a lot of track time during a couple of the sessions during the build-up, so to finish just outside the top ten wasn't bad at all - he can take a lot of positives from that.

“Kazuya had to start down in 23rd after a broken gearbox ruled him out of Saturday's qualification race, and then he got a broken wing at the first corner bottleneck so that made things very difficult for him.

"It's been a disappointing visit to Macau for us in the end but, as Sam proved in qualifying, we had a very quick car and the potential to do very well.”