The Toyota Gazoo Racing Festival Vios Challenge returns for its latest instalment with Season 5, for which Round 1 has been held at the Sepang International Circuit.
Saturday saw the running of Race 1, which saw the show of brilliance by young drivers in the elite and amateur racer classes. As before, the Super Sporting and Sporting categories for the aforementioned classes of racers were joined by the Promotional category for celebrities, along with the recently-introduced Rookie class featuring promising young talent emerging from the likes of simulator and kart racing.
The Super Sporting class for elite drivers saw veteran driver Eddie Liew make the best of his fourth-placed starting position, making short work of getting to the front of the pack to lead the class in Race 2 from start to finish. Situated behind Liew’s commanding drive in Race 2 was a battle for the remaining podium positions between no less than five drivers, where the jostling for track position enabled Liew to extend his lead to as large as 10 seconds ahead of the chasing pack.
Winner of this weekend’s Race 1, Hayden Haikal of Axle Motorsports was in battle for second place with teammate Boy Wong, along with Fariqe Hairuman and Amer Harris of M7 Japan Project Team as well as Ady Rahimy of 23 Motors and Clement Yeo of Distinctive Model.
The battling pack of five saw contact on track, which resulted in all five put out of podium contention. This yielded an advantage for Mitchell Cheah of Prima Pearl TD Racing Team, who would go on to grab a second-place finish, followed by Freddie Ang of Telagamas Toyota for the final Super Sporting podium spot in P3.
In the Rookie category for young drivers, 18-year-old Sharique Zulqarinain completed the opening round of Season 5 with back-to-back podium finishes, capping his second-placed finish in Race 1 with victory in Race 2. Following just behind was 20-year-old Muizz Musyaffa, and the Rookie-class podium was rounded out by 19-year-old Muhammad Hamdany Abdul Hamid.
“I had a really bad start in Race 2 and I was honestly not filled with hope but throughout the race I remembered what my mechanics and dad had told me which was to just keep a cool head and have fun,” said Sharique. “I was just trying to set a consistent time on every lap and in the process I began overtaking other competitors. From then on, it was just a job of maintaining my pace,” the rookie Race 2 winner said.
Historically sporting the largest field of the Malaysian Vios Challenge, the Sporting category for amateur racers in Season 5 was no different, this time featuring a class of 20 racers. Here, Race 2 victory went to Bradley Benedict Anthony of Crestmax Motorsports, who was eventually classified winner of the second Sporting class race of the weekend, followed by Kenneth Koh of Panglima City Racing Team and Abdul Miqail of 23 Motors in second and third place, respectively.
The final Sporting category classification was not the initial order at the finish line, as Season 4 Rookie and Gazoo Racing Young Talent Development alum Nquib Azlan was first to the chequered flag. The order did not stand, as Naquib was handed a 30-second penalty, which dropped him to P7 in the overall Sporting category race result.
In the Promotional category for local personalities, actor and podium regular Shukri Yahaya took the win in Race 2, capping his Season 5 start with another podium finish following his clinching of second place in Race 1. Actor Zizan Razak put in a remarkable performance, having started in last position and drove his way to a second-place finish in the 18-lap race. Completing the podium finishers was presenter, Nabil Ahmad.
Zizan and Shukri emerge from the opening round of Season 5 level on points, a result of both drivers producing identical results over each of the two races over the weekend – a race win and a second-place finish apiece. Zizan started Race 2 from P6 on the grid, though a spin on the opening lap meant he was dropped to the back of Promotional field, before he picked his way through to the eventual P2 finish.
“It’s something that has interested me since I was very young,” said Zizan. “As my entertainment career progressed it slowly allowed me to begin venturing into track days, taking up karting and even competing in karts,” he said. Zizan eventually realised that the lack of track time was a limiting factor in his driving, which led him in invest in a simulator for added practice, the actor explained.
Onwards from this race weekend, the next round of the Toyota Gazoo Racing festival and Vios Challenge is currently scheduled for June, during which Toyota hopes that conditions will once again permit the safe invitation of the public after two seasons of closed-door running due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Anything good coming out of this? What a waste of resources
Making use of unsold cars in stock but that is a bad idea now that oil prices has skyrocketed so unnecessary burning of petrol is hubris and inconsiderate.
It seems like paultan want to take care the reputation of toyota and other brand. From my investigation, they only talk good and never shows data, for instance, they never review fortuner(if im not mistaken), despite tht suv are one of the most hot selling suv in malaysia. Sales report also never been exposed and not be compared with other competitors. But if you realize, paultan like to compare sales report between proton and perodua(perhaps want to promote controversies?) And also encourage keyboard warrior to shine? Lol. Please be consistent. Its okey to compare proton and perodua, but also do that to other brands also. Its not like we only use ploton and pelodua here. Tak syiok lah! I mean, look at this article , seems like nothing wrong right.
They are not doing that. Paultan did published more articles for so many brands including proton and perodua, not promoting. I guess you are just new member and you don’t know much more.
Paultan have already done video review for fortuner last year. I can give you link: https://paultan.org/2021/04/08/first-look-2021-toyota-fortuner-2-8-vrz-rm203k/.
If not mistaken, sales report will only come by quarterly basis just like bmw. I can also give you link as well: https://paultan.org/2020/08/24/maa-to-release-vehicles-sales-data-by-brand-on-a-quarterly-basis-vehicle-type-breakdown-monthly/
Anyone can also say anything they want to reply in articles everywhere