The seventh season of UMW Toyota Motor’s simulator racing series, now branded as the Toyota Gazoo Racing GT Cup, has just wrapped up last weekend, with none other than Taj Izrin Aiman Taj Aiman being crowned champion once again.
In what is his fourth successive GR GT Cup crown, Taj Izrin Aiman will be taking home a grand prize of RM25,000 in cash, and the honour to represent Malaysia in the prestigious GR GT Cup Asia finals alongside his compatriots in second and third place, Chong Kai Chang and Muhammad Iqbal Suji.
The win certainly did not come easy for Taj Izrin Aiman, especially since he started near the end of the grid in the drama-filled wet final race at Le Mans.
“I took a huge gamble and decided to not pit in for a tyre change when it started to rain after just two laps and it paid off,” said Taj Izrin Aiman. “I stayed out on full slicks and tried [to] gain track position as the others – including the race leaders – pitted for a change of intermediate tyres and that essentially turned the entire race around for me.”
With the win in Race 3, Taj Izrin Aiman accumulated a total of 59 points to win the 2024 Season of Toyota GR GT Cup, finishing seven points clear of first runner-up Chong Kai Chang, and 2022 Champion Muhammad Iqbal Suji who amassed 50 points for a hard-fought third place.
For Chong, his second place finish is an improvement over the 2023 season, where he was third overall. The 30-year-old won a prize of RM15,000, while third place Muhammad Iqbal takes home RM12,000 for his valiant efforts.
The Toyota GR GT Cup remains one of the most lucrative and most intense simulator racing series in Malaysia, with more than 1,000 participants taking part in the qualifiers this year for a piece of the RM120,500 prize pool.
Aside from the open class, Season 7 of the series also saw the GR GT Cup Malaysia Campus Tour return to eight unversities in Peninsular Malaysia, as part of its efforts to introduce simulator racing to the younger generation.
This year’s Campus Tour attracted a total of 2,223 participants, with 10 finalists selected to participate in an exhibition race during the Grand Finale event. Amongst the 10 was 14-year-old Ethen Low, who represented St Michael’s Institution with a second place finish.
The Campus Tour had also been instrumental in discovering young talents such as Raja Amirul Syauqat, who went on to be recruited for the Gazoo Racing Young Driver Development Programme, and will be making his debut in the Rookie Class in this year’s Vios Challenge.
In seven seasons of organising the GR GT Cup Malaysia, the competition has grown exponentially intense, and every year the standards of driving and the level of race craft demonstrated by the finalists appear to set an even higher benchmark for future aspirants,” said UMW Toyota Motor President Datuk Ravindran K.
“This is precisely what we at Toyota had hoped to accomplish and I am pleased that we have been able to exact an impactful contribution to Malaysian motorsports both in the virtual realm and even more so on the racing track via the GR Vios Challenge and GR Young Driver Development Programme.”
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