Mellors Elliot Motorsport (MEM) driver Oliver Mellors has rallying in his blood. His father, Chris Mellors was a three-time British national rally champion, and the 22-year-old has been involved with rallying all his life.
“I have been driving rally cars from the moment I could touch the pedals,” Mellors said in an interview with French magazine Le Mag Sport Auto. The junior Mellors started his time in competitive driving with rallycross before moving into rallying once he obtained his UK driving licence.
The motorsport outfit bearing his family name chose the Proton Iriz as a starting point as the firm has worked with Proton for many years, snagging the PWRC (Production World Rally Championship) title – now known as the FIA World Rally Championship-3 – in 2002. At the time, MEM was responsible for preparing the championship-winning Proton PERT Evo VI for the Petronas Eon Racing Team (PERT), with Karamjit ‘Flying Sikh’ Singh taking home the drivers’ championship that year.
This was followed by the Proton S2000 rally car build, and then winning the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship in 2011. When the time came to build an R5 contender, staying with Proton was logical, Mellors said.
“The car actually has a very good base with all the right features, being a very short car but at the same time having a long wheelbase means it does exactly as you want it to. A lot of the current R5 cars appear to have a lot of oversteer, and with little to no overhang on the Proton, you don’t get this effect,” he adds.
The ingredients add up to some convincing results, as the Mellors Elliot Motorsport-prepared Iriz R5 has scored three podium finishes from three races contested. The success rate is every racing team’s dream, and with the car feeling effortless to drive it encourages the driver to go faster, Mellors continued. A rallycross campaign has crossed Mellors’ mind as well, though the outfit has no plans unless another party approaches them.
Back to the Iriz R5 campaign, the team hasn’t yet set a firm roster for a future driver line-up as the homologation process will be completed in the next few months, Mellors said. The firm has received a lot of interest in the car, and a great deal of the appeal comes from the Iriz R5 being optionally available in right-hand-drive.
Mellors Elliot Motorsports had the opportunity to have former rally driver Marcus Grönholm behind the wheel of the Iriz R5 for a test session last November, and the feedback from the Finn was positive.
Grönholm was surprised to discover how good the car was at this early stage of its development, though there are no current arrangements in place for him to officially compete for MEM. Although, “I think we would all love to see him competing again especially in the Proton Iriz R5,” Mellors said.
GALLERY: Proton Iriz R5
Go go P1 & MEM! No apple polishing, no bootlicking, no unnecessary praises. If its not gud, it wun perform. Simple as that. And it has 3 podiums from 3 debut races.
Local uni graduates must read this article. And dont blindly choose to buy foreign-made cars just becoz they think Proton is not comparable to fore.
But according to the famous article local graduates only prefer foreign makes like Honda and Toyota.
Pity, even local grads, are choosing Toyota and Honda and not Proton
https://paultan.org/2017/03/21/more-than-70-of-local-university-grads-choose-to-buy-foreign-vehicles-rather-than-the-national-car-proton/
So whats this nonsense about cars being exp in MY? Even u admitted freshies alredi can afford to get toyota & honda. Again got caught in ur twisted wordplay, eh?
grads no matter how poor dont want the troubles that come with a Proton. Waste 21 days annual leave to be in SC sorting out problems
More fake news! Thats what u also said about VW and HyundaiKias! So which is correct? Blindly bash?
Besides, if fresh grads can’t afford it, they can’t buy it anyways. So if nowadays, freshies can buy non-local cars means economy & affordability is going up despite ur constant repeat fail-rytale!
Thank god local grads are smarter now. They obviously dont wanna be guineapigs n lemoned like their seniors.
Buy new car, paid with half of salary, then compliant high cost of living. Yea… local grads are smarter.
More candies for smart local grads >
https://paultan.org/2016/10/11/first-time-car-buyer-scheme-in-budget-2017-report/
Sadly, Malaysian only use their Proton to go to works, fetch children from school, go to pasar malam. Racing? Leave that to Mat Lajak & Mat Rempit.
I much prefer that. At least P1 owners r more level headed instead of all them racing on the streets to go to works, or fetch children from school, or go to pasar malam.
Yes man. Better than being known as pajero family killer, always tailgate ferrari, lambo dangerously, tin milo, easy turtle, etc.
When Malaysians talk about Iriz, it’s always safety, always how the owners can’t believe they survive hitting a lorry, hitting lamp post, tree branch fell on roof, sandwiched by trucks, all kinds of accidents, all credits to HPF shell, VSC, airbags, seat belts and so on. Look on the internet, plenty of survivors swore by Proton’s safety.
It’s unprecedented. No cars under rm50k can be so safe before, but Iriz did it.
Perodua think they’ve upped the safety game, but the real world test awaits. Their lead won’t last, for Proton now joins the family of World’s Safest Car! Tremble before the might of Geely Empire! All hail Geely Empire!!!
Geely, Volvo, Bao Teng > all!
Proton> volvo < All
Yup. Proton Iriz is still the cheapest car with a 5-star safety rating in ASEAN NCAP.
All Proton dealers should upgrade to 4S centres as the incentive scheme offered by Geely, the best in the Malaysian auto industry for dealers to upgrade their facilities.
Good at rally cham, but the product cannot sale well.. Even Suzuki Ertiga can sold better than this Junk Iriz.. Bad RV!
well atleast there were somthing ‘good’..haha
Bcoz nothing from this venture has ever comes back into the product. A clear sign of incompetence.
Why u call MEM as incompetent? Their partnerships did win a few rally championships. So they r hardly incompetent.
Yeah i bet if proton is doing their job as competent as mem does they wldnt probably need any rescuing
U can fool pipu with mythical RV and purported better reliability but u cant fool the race judges and stopwatch. Meaning P1 only weakness is less adept at fooling pipu.
They took what made the Iriz good (British Lotus Chassis engineering) and replaced what made it bad (Malaysian engine / transmission / political bureaucracy) and made it into a fine piece of British engineering. Way to go Mellors Elliot!
Iriz chassis is engineered in MY. Lotus only input is ride, handling & suspension setup, according to their engineers I talk to during Alami P1.
Ah , thankiu Abang John,
So basically they took what made the Iriz great (British Lotus Suspension & Handling engineering) and ditch the Malay-Belgium CamPro VVT + CVT setup for a Anglo-Nippon Mixed of 4B11 and XTrac powertrain.
Since 2014, Proton had requested under Skim Pra-Pakej Insentif to govt to reimburse the money invested into research and development work to produce new cars. Proton had lost too many strategic opportunities since then.
Top end rally nowadays, nobody keeps factory standard production car drivetrain. Not Ford, not Citroen, not VW, not even them jepunis Mitsu & Subaru. Giants like Ford uses Cosworth engines & Xtrac powertrain. Even when engine is kept, the only thing ori is engine block. So why shud P1 MEM be special and has to compete with factory fitted drivetrain?
The guy was talking about the body design, not the suspension and chassis tuning. You can see that iriz r5 has totally different suspension than the normal iriz.
The car that has been tuned by lotus get extra black badge, indicate it is tuned by lotus (example suprima). Iriz is 100% tuned by local engineers.
And really now. Do u expect them to compete using factory standard engines & txn? When they aiming for top spot?
Nobody does that! R u gonna say Polo WRC shudnt have used their rally-customised 4WD system cuz its to its not available on standard polos? Pfft!
Well done Proton and MEM!
The results is there for all to see, in the competitive world of rally where producing results is utmost, Proton has the qualities by pure merit.
May the season continues to be a glorious one!
Proton > all
proton iriz …….it’s more than meets the eye
hmm…no engine picture?
if im not mistaken.. they’re using the inspira 2.0ltr mitsu engine, reduced bore to 1.6 and turbocharged and modified to meet the strict regulations for R5 rally cars, not just in terms of technical terms, but budget as well as the price of the cars are controlled by FIA. From what i’ve read, Hyundai R5 rally car also uses the same engine.