KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysians from all walks of life came together to celebrate the victory of Khairul Idham Pawi, who made history by becoming the first Malaysian to win a MotoGP World Championship race.
Khairul Idham finished in top spot in the Moto3 race at the Argentina Motorcycle Grand Prix yesterday.
Following his unprecedented victory, netizens flooded social media networks to express their pride over the Malaysian rider’s feat.
Facebook user Mat Sam Hamid said: Well done. Let’s support him so he can stand tall as a successful Malaysian in motorsports.”
Another FB user Ahmad Bahri said Malaysia is finally at the centre of attention in the world motorsports arena.
Muhamad Rashijd, meanwhile, said he felt immense pride at hearing the Negaraku being played at the end of the race.
“Negaraku played, feeling proud,” he wrote.
Amirul Asnawi Razak, meanwhile, offered a joke and said even ‘Mat Rempit’ can succeed.
“Well done, who said Mat Rempit can’t be champions? The Negaraku was played. Awesome!”, he wrote.
Netizen Robert Chin expressed immense pride over Khairul Idham’s feat.
Syaiful Nizam, meanwhile, felt that more racing circuits should be built to develop more local talent.
“It’s time we have more circuits to find and develop local talent,” he said
The posting was shared by almost 5,700 Facebook users, with over 1,300 ‘likes’ while on Twitter, it was shared by over 200 users.
Khairul Idham, the 17-year-old Honda Team Asia rider, took 41 minutes and 35.452 seconds to clinch the race at the Termas de Rio Hondo Circuit.
Spaniard Jorge Navarro from the Honda Estrella Galicia 0,0 team and South African Brad Binder (Red Bull KTM Ajo) were placed second and third after clocking 26.170s and 30.060s respectively.
Another Malaysian rider, Adam Norrodin from the Drive M7 SIC Racing Team, also did the nation proud with his heroic feat.
He fell off his machine while in third spot in the final lap but instead of giving up, pushed his motorcycle all the way to the finish line to secure a points finish at 11th spot.
With this win, Khairul Idham collected 25 points to reach fourth place while Adam remains at 19th on the scoreboard with five points after the second leg of the competition.