Toyota GAZOO Racing Malaysia Sets Sights On Victory At This Weekend’s S1K
The annual 1000km race is expected to take nine hours covering 181 laps of the Sepang International Circuit
Team Toyota GAZOO Racing Malaysia is set to mount an assault on this weekend’s Sepang 1000KM endurance race (S1K), just days after concluding Season 4 of the TOYOTA GAZOO Racing Festival and Vios Challenge race series.
The team will be fielding two cars, one in the MTC production class and the other in the SP2 production class. Fighting for outright victory in the MTC Production class will be the trio of three-time Vios Challenge Super Sporting Class champion Tengku Djan Ley, newly-minted Vios Challenge Rookie Class champion Naquib Azlan and GAZOO Racing Malaysia’s very own Chief Motorsports Officer Akio Takeyama.
Meanwhile, the SP2 production class will see the combination of Vios Challenge Rookie Class drivers Mika Hakimi and Jwan Hii, and Promotional Class driver, actor and Season 4’s first runner-up Zizan Razak.
The Vios Enduro Cup meanwhile, will run concurrently with the S1K and is designed to bring the Vios Challenge race cars and its drivers beyond their traditional hunting grounds. The Cup will offer a first prize of RM10,000, while the second and third place winners stand to win RM8,000 and RM6,000 respectively. A cash prize of RM4,000 and RM2,000 is also up for grabs for the fourth and fifth place finishers in the race.
Also making its debut in the MTC production class of this year’s S1K will be a brand-new Toyota Yaris driven by Season 3’s Vios Challenge Sporting Class champion and 16-year-old Hayden Haikal who will partner another young and talented driver Timothy Yeo, representing Wing Hin Motorsports, a Toyota dealer.
They will be joined in the class by Season 2’s Vios Challenge Super Sporting Class champion Boy Wong and Vios Challenge Sporting Class driver Dannies Ng in a Vios. The pair had finished third overall in S1K in 2019.
“Joining a prestigious national series event like the S1K is the start of growing GAZOO Racing Malaysia’s presence in Malaysian motorsports. Up until now, our attention has been devoted to developing and strengthening the Vios Challenge one-make racing series which has just recently concluded its fourth successful season.
“This will be a great way of completing this year’s racing calendar which has been extremely challenging as a result of the global pandemic. Of course, winning the event will certainly be the icing on the cake! We will be going for the overall victory but considering this will only be our second outing in S1K, we will be equally happy to finish competitively at the top,” said Takeyama.
