Macau Grand Prix: History made as 17-year-old Nigerian-American Ugo Ugochukwu wins 2024 FIA FR World Cup

Nigerian-American teen, Ugo Ugochukwu has won the 2024 FIA FR World Cup  and the 71st Macau Grand Prix – with a faultless performance throughout the entire weekend. 

The 17-year-old becomes the first driver from the USA to win this prestigious event since Bob Earl in 1981. 

Ugochukwu, who represents the US in car racing, was born in New York to Nigerian supermodel, Oluchi and Italian fashion designer, Luca Orlandi. 

Ugochukwu led from start to finish for R-ace GP ahead of Olivier Goethe for MP Motorsport and Noel León for KCMG IXO by Pinnacle Motorsport in a race that saw multiple safety car interventions. 

Ugochukwu will be buoyed by his performance as he heads to FIA Formula 3 in 2025 – the American topped every single session of the weekend, and while many others around him were losing their cool and heading into the barriers, he didn’t put a foot wrong to overcome the mighty challenge of Macau.

With this victory, Ugochukwu adds his name to an illustrious list and proved to the watching world that he has the talent and composure to surely see future success in the FIA’s senior single-seater categories.

“I can’t describe the feeling, of course I’m super happy. It was quite a tricky race, I was pushing the whole way, but I was confident in the pace – ever since Q2 we’ve been really quick, of course we won the Quali race as well, but there was still one more thing to do which was win the main race, and we managed to do it. I can’t thank the R-ace GP team enough – we had a great weekend and yeah, super happy to finally get the job done,” he said.