After nearly nine hours of gruelling racing, Proton R3 won its fourth Sepang 1,000 km race over the weekend with its Iriz race car, with drivers Fariqe Hairuman and Syafiq Ali taking the chequered flag. This makes the national carmaker’s in-house motorsports division the most successful team in the event’s history, having previously won the endurance race in 2012, 2014 and 2017.
It is also the fifth time a Proton has won the Sepang 1,000 km, while the Iriz is now the fourth Proton model to win after the Satria Neo in 2012, the Prevé in 2014 and the Suprima S in 2016 and 2017. With this latest victory, Ali is also the winningest driver, with three wins to his name.
“The 2018 S1K was a tough and exciting race run in hot weather conditions at a very fast pace,” said team principal Gary Lee. “There were many lead changes with multiple safety car periods adding to the complexity of our race strategy. We managed to get a good lead over the rest of the field with 40 laps to go and thankfully we were able to then stretch our advantage to over two minutes at the end of the race.”
Proton said that its motorsports ventures have enabled it to produce better cars for the consumer, as racing provides an ideal training ground for engineers, designers, mechanics and managers, and encourages a spirit of innovation. It added that the engineering benefits can be clearly seen and felt in its model range.
“It’s not easy to succeed in a race like the S1K, but our wins prove Proton cars have exceptional handling and are engineered to perform even when driven in such extreme conditions. To be both fast and reliable is very difficult, so when we manage to achieve it, we make sure what we learn on the racetrack is transferred to our cars on the road,” said Proton Edar CEO Abdul Rashid Musa.
As for the Saga that was campaigned for the first time in this year’s edition, the car driven by last year’s winners Admi Shahrul and James Veerapan unfortunately retired late in the race, having completed 178 laps compared to the lead car’s 181.
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Proton >>> All
Luaskan kuasamu P1!
National car maker can go into motorsports but cannot make its core business of selling cars do well. What is the use?
U talking about Mitsubishi?
You wonder why new 2008 myvi or even axia never ever win any race track competition before?
At least P2 makes money and does not lose RM4 mil per day the past 20 yrs
But the cost of lives from their unsafe cars over the past 20 years is priceless. Even 1 life lost cannot be replaced with Rm 4million.
True dat! Lives is precious and priceless. No highest topkek RV can replace a life lost.
They have a completely different business direction, I suppose what they have, works well enough for them so there is no need for them to go racing. Who knows, maybe they might in future…
They had a racing outfit once but it didn’t win anything but more shame onto them. So they stopped it to prevent more shame onto the brand.
Ali your Iriz exit highway corner 140kmh?
It doesn’t matter since the so called potong r3 cars are using the Toyota modification and different engines
It still uses Campro, bub. Kudos to Proton!
WOW! WHEN PROTON LOSE, SAY PROTON THIS AND THAT, WHEN PROTON WINS, SAY USE OTHER BRAND’S ENGINE AND THIS AND THAT! WHAT A TYPICAL MALAYSIAN WAY OF THINKING! YOU SIR, GETS 2 THUMBS UP FOR BEING VERY TYPICAL! PLEASE STOP MASTURBATING TO HENTAI AND FOLLOW UP WITH THESE RACE SERIES TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE MODIFICATIONS ON THOSE CARS AND RULES APPLIED BEFORE COMMENTING THANKS!
Typical Malaysians also to say something without thinking first. Don’t be worked up, bro over people like this. Let them live under their tempurungs where only Japanese can win races, while Proton will never win anything. We know better.
Meh…. Other than the “Proton” badge and outside “shape” of the car, nothing is same as the car we get on the street.
Don’t make a fool out of youraelf , dude. The engine is still a Campro. And which carmaker race with bone stock road cars? I really want to know.
Oh? How do you know? AFAIK, the engines are all Proton’s
What do you mean they used Toyota modifications and diff. engine?
The engine itself is re-tuned from the same N/A 1.6L found on production unit, producing 190hp, previously used IAFM unit
Toyota? Dun think so. And yes it is derived from campro turbo.
“To recap, at the heart of the souped-up Iriz R3 MTC is a race-prepared, naturally-aspirated 1.6 litre engine (a de-turboed Campro CFE block) that churns about 190 hp, matched to a five-speed manual transmission”
The keyword here is “race-prepared”.
Basically everything inside engine is swap out and soup up. Piston, piston rings, cam shaft, fly wheel, intake manifold, connecting rods, gaskets, piston rings, cylinder heads, cranks shafts, oil pumps, fuel injectors, ECU, etc. What left is probably the engine block and the oil sump pan.
So, not representing the road car we consumer get, no meaning to us consumer. It’s the still the Campro that crap out on us once too often that bothers us.
OK, tell us which carmaker won’t “race-prep” their car for a race? Even Porsche, arguably the most successful name in motorsports would never race a stock car.
BTW, the so-called Campro crapping out are not because the engines failed. It was because the oil pan was mounted too low on early batches of Gen2. The pan cracked and leaked oil leading to overheating. The issue was solved on later batches of Campro. Obviously, you only heard stories from a friend’s friend’s friend.
So Vios dun do any mods and use road version unit? That’s estupido ultimatum.
as with every other race prepared cars ever on this planet, so what the fuss? if race prepared evo wins then good on them, if race prepared Iriz wins then its not the same as production car… what kind of bollocks is this?
Why dun u tell that to every WRC contender? All their cars r just outwards appearance of the road going cars but inside is totally diff. Does anybody say it is wrong? Bodoh isnt it?
Then explain to us why Toyota factory Gazoo Racing didn’t even reach 1000 kms. As factory-backed outfit, the cars should be better than the P1, right?
Toyota can only win in races where they r competing amongst themselves.
1 win, 1 DNF. That reflects proton cars itself. Good in something, bad in sonething else.
Technical error. Car was fine. Happens in racing.
Toyota LeMans car oso died just b4 completing 2017 LeMans race. Does that tell u something as well?
Let’s see now…Toyota were leading the 2016 Le Mans 24 hrs when the car died on the very last lap and because it didn’t gross the finish line it recorded a DNF. They also have had cars with burnt clutches and cars that retired due to communication mix ups so Toyota must be crap right?
In F1 it isn’t uncommon to see one out of two cars in a team retire in a race and back when they had an unlimited supply of engines you would be lucky to have 10 cars finish a race. It’s racing dude.
FYI, the Proton Saga was a box-fresh racing car with less than 1 week of testing before S1K. The fact that it would have been running 2nd (it had to make an unscheduled stop for accident repairs) and was just tenths of a second off the pace of the Iriz is in itself very impressive. The car died 6-corners from the end due to a systems problem. a 1-in-a-million issue.
Vios Gazoo Racing car only able complete 600km
Worse than Saga R3 which retired at 178 laps out of 181 laps.
Racing – not a test bed for reliability. Doesn’t matter if the team can modify an engine to last a race while stripping everything out of the car. Most importantly are the small bits that keep failing over the life of the car
Jepunis cars pun rosak juga, jepunis no quality nowadays
Yupp my vios 2016 also got problems. All car got problems.
Then, tell us what the hell is Merc doing in F1? Porsche in Le Mans? If Toyota or Honda wins, you would be saying different things like “The victory proved Japanese reliability bla bla bla.” When P1 wins, “Racing cannot be proof of reliability”? Hates will always hate, hypocrites will always have forked tongues.
Marketing is the reason – to con fools that believe the hype that the race winner brands are the best
According to basher logic sales number means it is good car. But hey it is not a COTY even once.
Vios Gazoo Racing Car only able finished 108 laps!!!
Iriz with mitsu engine, nothing to be proud. At least show your campro engine capability.. Asyik kena towing saja hari2 campro
This is modified campro turbo not dino aged 4g engine
Kau kencing ke apa. Orang pakai campro dari 2006 tak pernah kena tow. Baru sekali je tukar clutch after the 8th year. Till now still can go to 190kmh. Just maintain the service interval and replace wear n tear.
Some people just can’t wrap their heads around the fact that the car won using Campro engine. They create their own ‘facts’ like “It’s a Mitsu engine” to console themselves that P1 can’t really win anything.
@Amran. You are wrong. Proton uses Volvo Turbo engines.That’s why they beat all the other cars.
Mitsu Evo engines are way too small for Iriz.
Maybe next year R3 team will try to squeeze the Evo engines for the Saga.
Jaguh Kampong ! Hooraayyy ! So proud of this…. (sarcasm)
Jaguh kampung won against Jaguh Berkokok Ayam Vios!
Errr some cars in the race are not local so….
The Jaguh Kampung wins against the Penjajah (Honda, Toyota, Suzuki) hooray…
Well done Proton. Geely should see this as an opportunity to develop their motorsports pedigree, the talents are there in R3 division.
Give them the resource they need, and they will soar higher. Everyone will win, then the rest of the world will know and bow to the might of Geely empire!
Proton, R3, Geely > all
P1, R3, Geely, Mesidis, VolvoCar, VolvoTrucks, Lotus > all