KUALA LUMPUR: After a disappointing outing last year, veteran racer Tengku Djan Ley and partner Naquib Nor Azlan made amends by winning the Sepang 1000 Kilometres (S1K) endurance race yesterday.
The Toyota Gazoo Racing Malaysia duo were first across the line in their Toyota Vios, clocking eight hours 32 minutes and 41 seconds to emerge champions in the Malaysian Touring Car class.
Wing Hing Motorsports' Hayden Haikal and Hii Wan Jian were a close second (+6.299s) in their Toyota Yaris while Hi-Rev Dream Chaser's Mitchell Cheah and Brendan Anthony (+1:59.442s), who were racing a Suzuki Swift, completed the podium.
Tengku Djan, Naquib and Akio Takeyama had last year failed to finish the race due to technical issues.
"The team did a tremendous job, the Vios didn't skip a beat throughout the race," said Tengku Djan.
"It was all down to us (drivers) to put in good laps and stay out of trouble. We had our own issues during the race but managed to recover.
"We played it based on what we had planned and everything turned out really well."
It was Tengku Djan's third personal triumph in S1K having won it in 2014 and 2016.
The S1K event saw participation from foreign racers this year including from Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Vietnam and the United Arab Emirates.
OTHER CATEGORY RESULTS:
Stock Production 2 G: 1. Empire M Racing (Syahrizal Jamaludin, Shazull Hisham Harun) 8:34:47s 2. R Engineering HMRT (Andrea Cecchellero, H.M Tauhid Anwar, Ishayet Hossain) 3. Rworks Riyoz (Ken Urata, Makoto Fujiwara, Masahiko Ida) - all driving Honda Jazz.
Stock Production 2 V: 1.Rworks Riyoz (William Chong, Takashi Ito, Hafez Kamaruddin, Ahmad Ridhwan) 8:33:39s 2. Rworks Riyoz (Karurosu Honda, Ito Rina, Ohna Takahisa, Ng Kim Ngee) 3. Applied Performance X LW (Jansen Tan, Lim Wei Cheik, Steve Toh) - all Suzuki Swift.
Vios Cup: 1. 23 Motors (Al Farouk, Abdul Miqail) 8:33:03s 2. 23 Motors (Ady Rahimy Rashid, Amir Husin) 3. Carroof Motorsport (Mirza Syahmi, Aiman Haziq, Khair Nur Adi, Khair Nur Adli).