Team FAST Autowork’s Pee Sau Peng and Pee Sau Fan has dramatically clinched the 2016 Malaysian Speed Festival (MSF) Championship in an action-packed day of racing in the season conclusion. The brothers pairing who competes in the Race Cars Open category needed to overcome the point deficit to the championship standings leader of team LMC Racing’s Shazull Hisham going into the final race of the season, and were fully focused on just wanting to score as many points as possible to grab the title.
“Being the first champion of the MSF series is unbelievable and phenomenal. With the competition getting stronger every round, we thought it was going to be really difficult, but we had good pace today and stayed out of trouble. Our target today was to score as many points as possible to win the championship, and it worked,” said both Sau Peng and Sau Fan.
Arriving at the finale, aside from Shazull, Sau Peng and Sau Fan would also have to overcome the threat from the resurgent F Tuned Racing and team driver Syahrizal Jamaludin, with their car now sporting some menacing aero kit and engine enhancements.
But the drama unfolded even before the main race began. During Race 1, both Shazull and Syahrizal’s cars seemed to be under performing with their lap times not showing their true pace as in the previous rounds. Were they sand bagging to save for the all-important main race? More on this later.
The FAST Auto duo didn’t hang around as they powered their Honda DC5 by finishing first in Race 1, perhaps indicating their intention while scoring maximum points. Other drivers who were also up to speed were Ifwat Ataa / Najiy Ayyad from Raceplus x DNTtune and Faidzil Alang / Muhd Hisyamuddin of Fast Lap Autoworks coming home second and third respectively, with the latter targeting for their first win in the season.
As for the title protagonist Shazull and Syahrizal, it became clear that there were reasons for both their cars under performing due to various mechanical and technical issues which altogether has dented all their championship title hopes. In Race 1 Shazull was a non-finisher while in Race 2, with his car clearly showing lack of pace, he could only limped home in 6th place, three places behind Sau Peng/Sau Fan, which unceremoniously ended his title hopes.
Team F Tuned also suffered the same fate displaying lack of speed, some 4-5 seconds off the pace setters. In Race 2, Syahrizal crossed the line in fourth position behind the FAST Auto duo, thus ending their championship target. A disappointed Syahrizal who was also having a bad fever explained, “We made some changes to the car’s engine which would have given us better acceleration and straight line speed. With not much testing prior to the finals, I only got to test the car outright today, and that’s when we found out that we have some serious issues, with the engine being down on power and intermittently cutting out. It’s rather disappointing for me and the team as we wanted to take the fight for the championship till the end as we believed we still have a shot at it. But we’ll look at this experience in a positive way and be better prepared next time around”.
With their title rivals dropping out of contention, Sau Peng and Sau Fan held on to third position in Race 2 which was enough for them to clinch the championship title. As promised by the man himself, Faidzil Alang took his first win of the season with Fast Lap Autoworks upgraded ‘Rocket Lemon’ Honda Civic EG 6 followed closely by Ifwat Ataa / Najiy Ayyad from team Raceplus x DNTtune.
Being the first ever champion in the MSF Sau Peng and Sau Fan are also the first recipient of the Professor Khalid Cup which is introduced to honour the overall winner for the premier category of the championship series.
Race Cars 1800
After a season long battle Azlan Malik is officially the 2016 MSF Champion for the Race Cars 1800 category. Showing consistency throughout the season he had amassed an assailable lead of 1185 points in the championship and he wasn’t slowing down either in the finals where he finished both races in first place.
The category has seen four contenders fighting furiously for top honours with Azlan having to fend off all season from the attacks of Winston Tan of JDM Racing, CY Khoo / Low Kent Jun U-Leat Moto and Hugo Chai / Ee Yoong Chern of Spike Motorsports.
In the final race of the season Azlan kept his cool and foot down by coming home first followed by Summer Motorsport’s Heah Choon Horng / Tan Say Hin and Winston Tan.
Race Cars 1600
Chan Beng Leong and Chang Hai Kiat took a brilliant win for team BMS Racing Lab in Race 1 with this result confirming their championship title in the Race Cars 1600 category. Throughout the season they’ve shown consistency and have been on the podium in every round, and based on these performance, have given them a huge lead in the points standings.
In Race 2, team Dream Chaser featuring the partnership of Geraldine Read and CY Ong took a convincing win after much battle during the opening laps. Making their second time entry in the MSF Series, the team’s driver CY Ong provided some standout drive after starting from fifth on the grid. He had some close door-to-door racing with the BMS Racing Lap car, LMC’s Hasrin Tahir and DNT Bears, Zaidi Baharin / Hellmee Jaafar before getting into the lead. Amazingly, even though they missed the two opening races of the season, team Dream Chaser finished second overall in the championship!
Saga Cup
Despite missing out on the top step of the podium in the season’s final race, former 2014 Porsche Carrera Cup Asia Class B Champion, Alif Hamdan, secured the Saga Cup championship (Expert), a category noted to be amongst the toughest in the MSF Championship.
In a closely contested Saga Cup category, Team Maxxoil Racing’s Tengku Djan Ley won both races in the final contest. Tengku Djan provided some of the stunning drives finishing ahead of Boy Wong of ST Wangan and Alif Hamdan of team JNA Racing-Penrite, with the latter securing the overall class championship title based on the day’s race results. But there were disappointment for championship leader Farique Hairuman as his car suffered a mechanical failure causing him to lose massive ground in terms of championship points and unable to take the fight to the end.
With the absent of Farique, the final race battle is set between Tengku Djan, Boy Wong and Alif Hamdan, and it was a spectacular race!
After seeing his performance in Race 1, it was expected that Tengku Djan would take a lights-to-flag finish in the Final race. But Boy Wong wasn’t about to stick around behind him as he needs to be two places ahead of Alif Hamdan to have enough points to win the championship.
Right from the start the pair were inching away from Alif and were trading some very fast laps and amazingly their lap times were almost identical in the closing stages, with Tengku Djan doing a 2:51.237 and 2:51.272 for Boy Wong! Alif couldn’t respond to their lap times and was merely watching from behind but figured that all he needed to do to win the championship was to maintain his third position and hoped that Boy Wong doesn’t get ahead of Tengku Djan at the end.
Indeed Tengku Djan kept his first position till the end, displaying once again a domineering drive with Boy Wong coming home 3.572 seconds behind at the finishing line, and with this finishing order determines Alif Hamdan’s championship title.
The day’s race action brought down the curtain on a record breaking debut season for the MSF with various categories title contenders going into the final race to determine their championship titles.
The provisional calendar for the 2017 Malaysian Speed Festival Championship is already set, comprising of 6 rounds. The new season will begin at Sepang International Circuit on the 26 February 2017.