The Malaysian round of the 2016 Australian V8 Supercars Championship will be cancelled, according to a report by Fox Sports Australia. The race series was previously scheduled to take place on the streets of Kuala Lumpur from August 12 to 14 as part of the KL City 400 Supercar Extravaganza.
The event was supposed to be a follow up to last year’s inaugural KL City Grand Prix, which saw a successful five-car exhibition race by V8 Supercars. However, an ongoing legal dispute between the event’s initial organiser, GT Global, with new organiser, City Motorsports in March, has resulted in the race series pulling the plug on the Malaysian round for 2016.
In a report by The Malay Mail, sources say that the new promoters (City Motorsports) had only met KL City Hall (DBKL) once earlier this year, with no other meetings since. “As far as City Hall is concerned, there is no street race in August,” the insider said. Additionally, Sports Commissioner Datuk Zaiton Othman confirmed that the organisers had not submitted an application to host the event. This could see the event being scrapped entirely.
Australian V8 Supercars chief James Warburton said in a statement, “we have been formally advised by the Malaysian promoter that due to ongoing legal action in Malaysia, to which we are not a party, there is insufficient time to prepare the street circuit in Kuala Lumpur for the event on August 12-14. The event has therefore been cancelled.”
However, Warburton has not given up on the race taking place in Malaysia next year. “We have a four year agreement to race in Malaysia until the end of 2019 and we look forward to returning to Kuala Lumpur when all the local legal issues have been resolved. We believe this event on the streets of KL will be one not to be missed,” he said.
The inaugural KL City Grand Prix came with its share of problems. Aside from failing to obtain a licence to host the event initially, safety structures placed along several main roads in the city resulted in disgruntled pedestrians, motorists and those working and living in the area, who bemoaned about the inconvenience caused by the street circuit.
GALLERY: 2015 KL City Grand Prix highlights
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“…due to ongoing legal action in Malaysia”…1mdb?…lol
Please don’t come here. Mat Rempits need to race in KL every nights to promote safety and support to the gomen
DBKL is waiting for more money from the organisers. The kind of money that has no receipt. The last time also, organizer gave a lot of ang pau to DBKL big guns to allow such an unsafe race to happen in KL which caused so much of productivity loss. People went to work late and went hope from work late because of massive jams. That alone was few millions loss.
DBKL, pls lah, don’t makan duit kopi so much. Think about our safety.
DBKL is waiting for more angpau from the organiser. Like the last race, DBKL got lots of unofficial angpau.
Untunglah become DBKL officer. Buta buta can get FREE money.
Bodo. Is DBKL suing the organisers for last minute approval and shoddy cleanup after race. Read before u shoot, dun premature eject.
must be a lot of sabotage..
Go host it at Putrajaya, they have plenty of spaces for street racing over there
host it infront of PM house. Better and safer.
Thank god for cancelling this abomination of an event. Legal action because it was so badly run the last time with some many complaints for damages and business loss, the organizer wanted to give it to another crony. Good that its out. Hope the whole freaking event is cancelled for good. Stupid event.
The real reason is the Australians don’t want to be associated with the KL rempit grand prix. Imagine reading ‘the V8 supercars will race on a street circuit also used for the local rempit races.’
Damn shame. Lucky I went last year, those V8 were so much hnnngggghhhh
The real reason is cuz Aussie V8s r now rare breed, thanks to short-sighted politikus and pipu that supports import cars over their domestic ones, closing down holden & local Ford.
So now they wan to preserve their babies and race as little as possible. No more replacement car and spare parts gets rarer by the day.
We might be heading in that direction too. How saddings.
make up story pun kena credible sikit. no need to bullshit here
Tanye lah ricer Aussie sendiri! Mereka dah tengah fruss ni!
What do you expect from a bootlicker?
if supercars from Australia aint coming….then we can make our own version of Mat Rempit GP.
Maybe after that, the whole world will emulate our mat rempit culture….whom our ministers are so proud of.
Surely Malaysia, Boleh?
Malaysia everything pun Boleh……
Yes correct. Thats what I mentioned before. Have a dedicated small track at Sepang and let them run things themselves. Larger gangs will eventually start to adopt more professional methods to win consistently and this will influence others as well.
When this works out, have more such programs at each state. Then have finals in Sepang F1 track itself. This will bring up pros in racers, team managers, mechanics, pit crew, analytics members as well. This shud be the way forward.
dbkl mayor say have mat rempit street race better…jaguh kampung can elevate to world class status
Good job. This is for all. No more jam, no more inconvenience, no more business unfriendly event. Tengku Adnan, just proceed with your rempit racing la in KL. Hahaha.
instead of racing in this problematic KL city, why dont they shift the focus to Singapore instead… better infrastructure and more efficient organization… it will be even better and more successful to race in Singapore than KL FOR SURE…
Good…
Last year event, DBKL was forced by Minister to sponsor the event ..if not mistaken almost RM50 million (RM50,000,000.00) ONLY…another duit rakyat…benefit to KL folks??..nothing
Sultan of Johor should enticing the organiser to do it in JB just like the grandfather.