His name is known by all Malaysians who have an interest in motorsports and his Malaysian team mate is no stranger to most Malaysians. Like many youngsters, Fairuz Fauzy started his racing career at a young age with Formula A kart. A racing career that will take too much space and time to type, he has the experience and the winning formula to move Malaysian motorsports into a new segment, GT Racing. Now 33-years olds and a seasoned race veteran, Fairuz who is also a Former Formula 1 test and reserve driver is ready to take up a new challenge for the 2016 Asia Le Mans Race Series with OD Racing and he wants to promote a new breed of drivers, engineers, pit-crew and race staff to match the teams participating in GT Racing globally. OD Racing will be using the McLaren GT race car for this season.
Fairuz will be joined by veteran Malaysian driver and ‘drift king’, Tengku Djan Ley bin Tengku Mahaleel who at 40-years of age has had a good 21-years or racing experience. Tengku Djan is also the General Manager of Lotus Car Malaysia, which is the distribution outlet for Lotus cars in Malaysia. Here there is no conflict of interest as Lotus Cars is not involved in GT Racing and have no participation in any of the races he is driving in for OD Racing.
The 3rd driver for OD Racing is a new face to Malaysian motorsports enthusiasts. New Zealander Jono Lester with his 13-years of racing experience joins Fairuz and Djan to make a formidable team for the coming 2016 Asian Le Mans Series. This 26-year old has been driving since the age of 13-years and earlier this month Jono Lester won on his debut in the new China GT Championship held at the Chengdu Goldenport Circuit in a Porsche 991 GT3 Cup car.
Significant highlights of Jono’s racing career include becoming the youngest Porsche Cup racer in the world at 16, then the youngest Porsche Cup race winner at 17. Jono was named New Zealand’s Young Driver of the Year in 2007, a 2007 graduate of the prestigious Elite Motorsport Academy and a 2008 President’s Scholarship winner. In 2009 he assisted Porsche AG in developing their new GT3 race cars in Bahrain and in 2010 he was awarded a Porsche Motorsport Talent Scholarship after a worldwide shootout in Italy against 11 other young drivers. He then competed in the Monza round of the Porsche Supercup. In 2011 Jono represented Team New Zealand at the World Time Attack Challenge and for 2012, he was offered the opportunity to drive for PETRONAS Syntium Team in Super Taikyu. PETRONAS Syntium Team founder and owner David Wong of DWA Motorsports has been a great supporter, mentor and advisor to Jono since he was just 14 years old.
Asian Le Mans Series where 16 cars and 8 car brands will compete.
16 GT3 cars from 8 different car brands will be battling it out at the 2016 Asian Le Mans Series with a solid 80% of the teams coming from Asia which includes OD Racing.
The rest of race field start with two teams representing Europe: Spirit of Race from Switzerland, with their Ferrari 488 GT3, and new team VS Racing from Italy, who have entered a Lamborghini Huracan GT3.
Clearwater Racing is now running a Ferrari 488 GT3. After the team won the series last season, they went on to take part in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, coming 4th in class, a great result for the Singaporean team.
Team AAI – have signed up four cars: two McLaren 650 GT3, a Mercedes AMG GT3 and a BMW M6 GT3. Absolute Racing are entering two cars, a Bentley GT3 and an Audi R8 GT3, and KCMG, who have moved up from the Cup Class to enter an Audi R8 LMS GT3. Other new teams joining for the 2016-2017 season are Team BBT from China, DH Racing from Hong Kong and FFF Racing by ACM from China.
Provisional 2016-2017 Asian Le Mans Series calendar is as follows, and will be 4 hours in duration, an increase from 2015/2016 Season:
- China – Zhuhai: 28th – 30th October 2016
- Japan – Fuji: 2nd – 4th December 2016
- Thailand – Buriram: 6th – 8th January 2017
- Malaysia – Sepang: 20th – 22nd January 2017
