The 13th edition of the Malaysia Merdeka Endurance Race (MMER) officially kicked off at 12.04pm today with a rolling start with ex Formula 1 driver Gianmaria Bruni leading a procession of 30 cars as they began their 12-hour contest at Sepang Circuit. Starting from pole position for Clearwater Racing Team, Bruni, who raced for the European Minardi team in 2003 and 2004, partners Ireland’s top sportscar driver Matt Griffin and Singaporean Mok Weng Sun, team leader and former winner of the prestigious event.
The race was flagged off by Malaysian Moto3 rider Muhammad Zulfahmi Khairuddin, who rides for AsiaAsia AJO Racing Team and returning home to attend the official launch of the 22nd edition of the Malaysian Motorcycle Grand Prix in Kuala Lumpur this Tuesday.
He was accompanied by Datuk Mokhzani Tun Mahathir, chairman of Sepang International Circuit (SIC) and a former MMER champion himself; winning the coveted title in 2008 with Sven Herberger and Lars Erik Nielsen for Hong Leong Kencana Racing Team. In qualifying yesterday, Bruni helped his Clearwater Racing Team to record the fastest aggregate time of 2 minutes 4.108 seconds. Taniguchi, Yanagida and Dominic had 2 minutes 4.759 seconds with the partnership of Kataoka, Fariqe and Melvin only managed 2 minutes 4.873 seconds.
Apart from the GT class, the MMER also staged competition in two other classes – the Sports Production category and the Touring Production category, which had Nexus Racing in the Aston martin GT4 and Type R Racing Team leading the respective classes at the start of the 12-hour contest; courtesy of their awesome performance in qualifying yesterday. Visit us back for the results and pictures early tomorrow morning.
