SEPANG – Sepang’s chief executive said he welcomes all feedback on how to improve the Malaysia Championship Series.
This is after Malaysia’s former Formula One driver Alex Yoong suggested that the 2-litre and 1.6-litre cars should have their own individual race.
The former Minardi F1 driver said that the different types of cars were grouped together previously because the competition had low participation but that has changed with the series now being oversubscribed.
The Sepang International Circuit (SIC) as organiser of the series is looking into ways to improve it.
“We welcome all types of feedback, and we always hear feedback from the participants on how to make this competition better,” said SIC chief Azhan Shafriman Hanif.
“We are looking into it. I think Alex is right about this, because of low participation we had to combine the two categories.
“But because now we have a lot of cars on the track, we might need to look into separating the two categories.
“However, when this happens the cost of running things will go up.
“We have to extend the operating hours of this competition, these are the things that we need to consider before implementing,” said Azhan.
He added that a decision will be made after discussions with the respective stakeholders.
“Internally, we do have a committee that makes the decisions, but of course we need to discuss this with everyone, especially with the drivers and teams because they are the ones participating.
“One of the things that we need to further improve is to give more airtime to the other classes (categories) .
“What Alex commented was right, I think – when the 2-litres cars are in front more focus will be on them but of course we can make that adjustment, it will not be a problem.
“I hear him and think it’s a good idea to split but of course there are other considerations that we need to look into before we make that decision,” said Azhan.
The series features touring car racing across four categories.
A milestone was achieved in Round 2 with the highest number of participants with 54 cars.
During the race, all 54 cars on the track were racing each other to place first in their respective categories.
This can lead to a lot of chaos on track, just like what happened this past weekend in Races 1 and 2 at Sepang.
Azhan praised his team for helping achieve the milestone of getting the highest number of participants since 2002.
“We did a lot of things to achieve this, I would like to thank my team for working so hard and of course our partners like Yokohama too.
“Last year we saw the spark a bit, but it was very short, and we just came out from the pandemic.
“I think we are going to further improve in (terms of) participation and also how we can get this competition to the next level,” said Azhan, who took over SIC in April 2020. – The Vibes, June 26, 2023
