The first round of the Malaysia Speed Festival Series 2018 (MSF 2018) proved to be a success with 166 cars on the grid, proving that the event is the biggest of its kind despite the Chinese New Year festivities at the time.
Participants came as far as from Thailand to take part in Sunday’s event, which managed to draw in a crowd numbering 4,210 spectators. There’s was also a good show of support from sponsors such as Hankook Motorsports, Fleetbattery and Fawster Motorsports, to ensure the event ran flawlessly.
The event featured 13 categories – Super Production, Super 1500 NA, Super Street, Saga Cup Casual, Saga Cup Advance, Saga Cup Pro, Street Tuned Limited, Street 1600 Limited, Street 2000 NA, Proton 1800, Race Cars 1600, Race Cars 1800 and Race Cars Open – some of which have received revisions.
In the Super Production category, Petropenn-Piston Project’s car #411, driven by Muhammad Roni Misman, dominated both heats of the race to take the win. “Looks like our efforts from last year is finally paying off. We are more motivated to march on to the second round which is expected to be more challenging. The target for this year is definitely to be the champion in this series,” said Roni.
Coming in second place is Flex Racing’s car #343 piloted by Hendra Eryawan and Mohd Norhafidzi, which finished 10 seconds behind car #411. Fizzi Motorsports’ entry (Mohd Yusof Muda/Chong Tung Lung) meanwhile, finished in third place.
The Super Production category, which made its debut over the weekend, allows naturally-aspirated vehicles up to 1,500 cc produced from 2006 onwards to participate. Examples include the Honda Jazz, Toyota Vios, and Perodua Myvi, all of which are pretty popular models in the local market.
In other selected highlights, the new Street 2000 NA category featured quite a number of Toyota vehicles, particularly the Altezza and GT86. Sixteen-year old Amirul Haikal wowed the competition by securing first place overall with the LMC Racing Team’s GT86 car #825,
Meanwhile, team SMRT86 came in second place thanks to the efforts of Syed Rizal and Faisal Asri in another GT86. Finally, third place went to the duo of Shazli Mohamed and Fadhlan representing SP Auto Tuning in an Altezza, after a hard-fought battle with Millenium Motorsport’s Proton Wira car #105 driven by Faisal Naim.
Moving on to the Race Cars Open category, one of the fastest in the series, the pair of Akid Azlee and Mark Darwin from SITTY-DNT found success by beating out Azlan Malik (WENSO Racing Team) and Shamir Aizan (Smartroluem-Prodrag).
The race wasn’t without incident, as the first heat demonstrated, with an intense dogfight between Faidzil Alang in car #29 (Fleetoil Racing Team) and Azlan Malik in car #50 (WENSO Racing Team) resulted in an accident when Faidzil attempted to overtake Azlan at turn 15 of the Sepang International Circuit.
This resulted in Faidzil’s retirement from the race, and left the door wide open for Mark Darwin, who proceeded to overtake Azlan. It was also a heroic drive by Shamir Aizan in car #404, as he started the second heat from last place due to technical issues, but managed to end the session in third.
The results of each MSF category are as follows:
Super Production
1. M.Roni Misman (Petropenn-Piston Project) – 14:34.565
2. M.Yusuf Muda/Chong Tun Lung (Flex Racing) – 14:44.620
3. M.Noorhafidzi/Henra (Fizzi Motorsports) – 14:47.631
Super 1500 NA
1. Willam Ho/Ricky Siow (Momentum Auto Garage) – 13:56.995
2. K.Logesvaran (MTRD Sing Boy Racing) – 13:57.174
3. Keu Shian Shi/Alex Chow (Momentum Auto Garage) – 14:20.039
Super Street
1. Azlan Malik/Arep Ahmadi (WENSO Racing Team) – 19:18.163
2. Chong Tun Lung/Lai Chee Kwin (Speed Racing Motorsports) – 19:21.035
3. Raja Imran (MR Proworks-Ftuned) – 19:36.329
Saga Cup Casual
1. Mohd Jaz/Mohd Hafiz (MERU Speed) – 15:45.429
2. Nasharuddin Abd Aziz (LOCO Racing) – 15:46.315
3. Mohd Syaifudin (Team Mode Racing) – 15:47.874
Saga Cup Advance
1. Shaiful Zamri (Malkar Racing) – 14:55.455
2. Lim Lee Hua/Khair Nur (Seng Motorsports) – 15:11.693
3. M.Aliff/M.Shahril (OneSoulMotorsports) – 15:12.974
Saga Cup Pro
1. Tommy Lee (STS Racing Team) – 14:34.725
2. Damian Dielenberg – 14:38.347
3. YC Foo/Ken Yap (Fast Racing Team) – 14:41.338
Street Tuned Limited
1. Dzamir/Admi Sharul (Suzuka Racing Team) – 19:24.539
2. Roakhir/Hapizu (Infinity Petropenn) – 19:32.629
3. Zairi Latif/Faiz Sulaiman (WG-MA Racing Team) – 19:36.407
Street 1600 Limited
1. Hazrin/M.Azri (Unixx JMS Tuner) – 19:36.043
2. Zuhaidi Ishak (Fleetoil Racing Team) – 19:40.150
3. Hazlami/Muslim (WAKOS RNR) – 19:46.850
Street 2000 NA
1. Amirul Haikal (LMC Racing Team) – 19:34.704
2. Faisal Asri/Syed Rizal (SMRT86) – 19:52.786
3. Fadhlan/Shazli (SP Auto Tuning) – 20:13.820
Proton 1800
1. K.Perajun (DV Motorsports) – 19:33.281
2. Sukran/Nur Azam (SPRT Motorsports) – 19:42.262
3. Afiq Haikal (LMC Racing Team) – 19:45.594
Race Cars 1600
1. Desmond Yee (N1 Racing Team) – 13:36.683
2. Syahmi Mahzan/Syahrizal (Ftuned Racing Team) – 13:42.762
3. Soffiz Hardy/Wan Ahmad Farouk (Ftuned Racing Team) – 14:28.722
Race Cars 1800
1. Akid/Mark Darwin (SITTY-DNT) – 13:20.333
2. Ahmad Shab/Fadzlisham (KanjoR-DNT) – 13:22.832
3. Lim Puay Soong (Autolite Racing) – 13:32.815
Race Cars Open
1. Mark Darwin/Akid (SITTY-DNT) – 12:01.781
2. Azlan Malik (WENSO Racing Team) – 12:09.338
3. Shamir Aizan (Smartroluem-Prodrag) – 12:18.976
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I hope we don’t give this up like how we gave F1 up.
No worries. We dun need to pay Bernie for this.
This event is great for grass root support and feeder to other motor sports. Hopefully more sponsors will come in to make the event bigger.
Also a good starting place for drivers who think they have the REAL driving skills rather than racing illegally at nights on the highways.