PROTON APRC Rally Champion Alister McRae and Bill Hayes took some time off from their schedule to demonstrate their prowess around PROTON plant for a staff engagement activity organised by the motorsports division and Group Branding, Marketing and Motorsports. Joining in this ‘celebration for commitment to win’ event was the R3 team of Faidzil Alang and Syafiq Ali. Fresh from a 4th placing position in the just completed Sepang 1000KM Endurance race, the team paraded their Satria Neo and Gen-2 for the benefit of about 1000 over PROTON staffs.
Not forgetting the PROTON-CUSCO 2WD champion – Karamjit Singh also came for this event to further sign autographs and do photography for the PROTON staffs and members of the media. Director of Group Branding, Marketing and Motorsports John D. Chacko took a spin in one of the cars which showcased their manouevres said, “Its my first taxi-ride in the rally cars and i must say it knocked the wind out of me.” On maintaining the titles John said, “Being committed to winning is what PR0TON and the rally cars do so we will definitely want to continue this pace and defend our titles for next year.’ Datuk Abdul Razak Dawood, Head of Motorsports said, “I am happy to see most of the PROTON staffs being here today to witness first-hand how a rally with our cars run and with our 8 titles this year – its only good to continue this pace into next year to secure and further clinch these titles in 2012.” “I am looking forward to next year’s 1st race in New Zealand in April and will announce our drivers and plans for next year soon.” Some of the team who were at this engagement event was Alister Mcrae, Bill Hayes, Karamjit Singh, Faidzil Alan, Syafiq Ali, Shahruddin Hamid (chief engineer for R3 motorsports team) and Team Principal Chris Mellors. Chris’s son Ollie Mellors took to the demo in the 2nd car of Chris Atkinson and showed that he may just be a force to be reckoned with in the junior championships. The team will head to PROTON Tanjung Malim for their demonstration show for the benefit of the staffs in the northern region on Thursday 8/12.
