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Sepang International Circuit (SIC) may be exploring the possibility of turning the 12-hour Merdeka Millennium Endurance Race into a 24-hour endurance race.
At the official driver’s press conference yesterday, Sepang International Circuit chairman Datuk Mokhzani Mahathir said the 12-hour endurance race, dubbed as the most challenging in South East Asia may one day evolve into a 24-hour race.
“It depends on what the competitors want; the drivers, the team, the sponsors and whether this region is ready for a 24-hour race. Of course, in Europe and US, 24-hour races are more the norm than 12-hour races.
“But whether we are ready, whether we have the teams, the drivers and the sponsors with kind of budgets required to go from 12 to 24, is a question that I am not able to answer.
“This is an expensive sport, there’s not as many regional drivers participating as we would like. As you can see from the driver line-up and from the people who are in the pits, you will see there are a lot of foreign teams. So it’s still got a long way to go. And of course prize money is the other issue,” he said.
Mokhzani had posed the possibility of changing the 12-hour format into a 24-hour format in his column, Jani’s Jottings, which appeared in the latest edition of the SIC in-house publication, the P1 Circuit Magazine.
“Will it evolve into a 24-hour race? That depends on what the racers, teams, fans and sponsors want. We still need more support to develop the MMER so we’ve a long way to go before we can answer that question.
“Maybe we’ll do a one-off 24-hour race and see if it works. Who knows. But regardless of what class of car drivers have raced in, there’s no denying that the MMER has been the biggest catalysts for race driver development since year 2000. May we all enjoy it for many years to come,” he said in his column.
The 11th edition of the Merdeka Millennium Endurance Race will be taking place this weekend, starting at midnight on Saturday and ending on Sunday at noon.
With an exciting driver’s line-up which includes Le Mans winner Frank Biela and Marco Werner, and top motor racing contenders Peter Kox, Christopher Haase, Daryl O’Young, Matthew Marsh, Dominik Farnbacher and Alex Yoong, the race is set to be one of the most challenging ever.
The list also includes top Super Taikyu drivers of Tatsuya Kataoka, Nobuteru Taniguchi and Masataka Managida from the PETRONAS Syntium Racing Team, as well as Lotus F1 Racing test driver Fairuz Fauzy and former German F3 driver Rizal Ashram Ramli.
Sepang International Circuit (SIC) may be exploring the possibility of turning the 12-hour Merdeka Millennium Endurance Race into a 24-hour endurance race.
At the official driver’s press conference yesterday, Sepang International Circuit chairman Datuk Mokhzani Mahathir said the 12-hour endurance race, dubbed as the most challenging in South East Asia may one day evolve into a 24-hour race.
“It depends on what the competitors want; the drivers, the team, the sponsors and whether this region is ready for a 24-hour race. Of course, in Europe and US, 24-hour races are more the norm than 12-hour races.
“But whether we are ready, whether we have the teams, the drivers and the sponsors with kind of budgets required to go from 12 to 24, is a question that I am not able to answer.
“This is an expensive sport, there’s not as many regional drivers participating as we would like. As you can see from the driver line-up and from the people who are in the pits, you will see there are a lot of foreign teams. So it’s still got a long way to go. And of course prize money is the other issue,” he said.
Mokhzani had posed the possibility of changing the 12-hour format into a 24-hour format in his column, Jani’s Jottings, which appeared in the latest edition of the SIC in-house publication, the P1 Circuit Magazine.
“Will it evolve into a 24-hour race? That depends on what the racers, teams, fans and sponsors want. We still need more support to develop the MMER so we’ve a long way to go before we can answer that question.
“Maybe we’ll do a one-off 24-hour race and see if it works. Who knows. But regardless of what class of car drivers have raced in, there’s no denying that the MMER has been the biggest catalysts for race driver development since year 2000. May we all enjoy it for many years to come,” he said in his column.
The 11th edition of the Merdeka Millennium Endurance Race will be taking place this weekend, starting at midnight on Saturday and ending on Sunday at noon.
With an exciting driver’s line-up which includes Le Mans winner Frank Biela and Marco Werner, and top motor racing contenders Peter Kox, Christopher Haase, Daryl O’Young, Matthew Marsh, Dominik Farnbacher and Alex Yoong, the race is set to be one of the most challenging ever.
The list also includes top Super Taikyu drivers of Tatsuya Kataoka, Nobuteru Taniguchi and Masataka Managida from the PETRONAS Syntium Racing Team, as well as Lotus F1 Racing test driver Fairuz Fauzy and former German F3 driver Rizal Ashram Ramli.
