The return of the Malaysia Championship Series 2021 at the Sepang International Circuit (SIC) certainly brought delight to plenty of touring car fans with constant racing action in all four races which was broadcasted live on the circuit’s Facebook page.
In the Malaysia Touring Car (MTC) category, local motorsport darling and guest co-host at Autobuzz.my, Leona Chin drove to victory in Race 1 and Race 4. The final race of the day also saw Leona sharing the podium with two other lady racers- Nurul Husna and Natasha Seatter from Niza Racing who were also racing with a Suzuki Swift. It was also the ladies second podium after two days of racing.
The doubleheader schedule was quite a challenge to the teams, with the crew from Tedco Racing managing to repair Leona’s Dynapac-liveried Suzuki Swift Sport 1.6 in time for Race 4 after suffering a broken suspension due to contact with 23 Motor’s Honda Jazz in the earlier race.
“Well, today was a tough race. We were fixing the car from yesterday’s incident to this morning, and we had to fix the car again today (Race 3). We managed to make the car ready and push as hard as we can to get to the podium that we are aiming for. For the next round, I will push harder!” expressed Leona.
In Race 1, what seem to be a straightforward drive to victory for the pair of Alif Hamdan and Lai Wee Sing and their Honda Civic 1.5 Turbo was met with a mechanical issue in the last five minutes of the hour-long race.
Cruising at close to a pace that is 20% slower than the usual, the pair of Hamdan and Lai managed to bring their Honda Civic 1.5 Turbo to finish fifth overall in Race 1. They remain unchallenged in their Touring Production category as the sole competitor, which saw them winning the next three races.
Although only four entrants, the Stock Production 1 category with a field of FD2 Honda Civic Type Rs saw constant battles in all four races. Race 1 and Race 4 saw Shazull Hisham and Mohd Syahrizan from Empire M Racing team taking the winners trophy, while Race 2 and 3 see Ken Urata and RWorks taking the top step of the podium.
Finally, the Stock Production 2 (SP2) category with the largest field of cars with 10 entrants promised plenty of racing action as the majority of the cars are closely matched in both performance and driver skills. At every race, viewers were treated by quality racing and racecraft from the pair of Hayden Haikal/Adam Khalid, Mitchell Cheah/Ady Rahimy, Imran Wafi/Nijay Ayyad and Putera Adam.
Round 1 saw Mitchell Cheah and Ady Rahimy, both drivers from the Sepang Talent Development Programme, took commanding race wins (Race 1 and 2) in thier black 23 Motor’s Honda Jazz, while Round 2 saw the fortune favouring the pair of Hayden Haikal and Adam Khalid (Race 3 and 4) in their yellow and white BHPetrol Honda Jazz.
Apart from Putera Adam, young racer Ameer Harris is also taking part in MCS 2021, who both are graduates from Gazoo Racing Young Talent Development Programme.
The Malaysia Championship Series 2021 will continue with Round 3 and 4 from December 14 th to 16th. The racing action is not taking such a long break though as the Sepang 1,000 km race is scheduled for November 27th to 29th, which sees plenty of names and machinery from the MTC and SP2 categories. The race, lasting eight hours, will be broadcast live on SIC’s Facebook page.
Main image credit: Facebook/owenleejunhui – Photo specialist at Sepang Circuit
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