Recently, the motorsport arm of Proton, Team Proton R3 (R3), announced a search for lady racers and mentorship programme for race teams competing in the Malaysia Speed Festival (MSF) series. The two programmes are held in partnership with MSF, who are the largest grassroots motorsports event in the country. Both programmes are aimed to develop motorsports at a grassroots level by leveraging on Proton's motorsport experience throughout the years.
According to Proton, this is a way of how the company wants to give back to the Malaysian racing community. Proton, via R3, is currently the only manufacturer supported racing team here and have been competitive for over 15 years. Even the bigger boys (in terms of Malaysia annual sales numbers), like Honda and Perodua do not operate factory funded teams here in Malaysia. A shame really.
Anyway, we have Proton to champion grassroots racing and they are especially well suited for that with their track record. Proton and R3 have wins in the Asia Pacific Rally Championship (APRC) and class victories at the World Rally Championship (WRC) level. Domestically, the team has two overall Merdeka Millennium Endurance (MME) wins to its name as well as four Sepang 1000km (S1K) victories.
With that, R3 now hopes to share its wealth of experience via the MSF-R3 Lady Racers Search and MSF-R3 Mentor Programme. Their objective is to allow Malaysian racing drivers and teams access to information, team management and car development techniques that will help to elevate their performance and lead them to success at national level events.
So why the push for lady race drivers? Why not? While many Malaysian racing drivers have competed in regional and international events, almost all of them have been male dominated. Proton and R3 would like to make a change and give lady drivers a chance to shine in motorsports, hence the MSF-R3 Lady Racers Search.
The lady racer programme is also an opportunity to discover talented lady racers and nurture their careers, giving them a good head start in a male dominated arena. Who knows, we may see a new breed of world class racing drivers from these ventures.
From an initial pool of participants, three will be offered an opportunity to develop as racing drivers and participate in the 2019 edition of the S1K race, driving a Team Proton R3 prepared car. Selections will be based on how contestants perform in a series of on and off-track activities and will include being judged on criteria such as discipline, team work and commitment aside from their skill behind the wheel.
The other programme, the mentor programme, is where selected drivers and teams competing in the MSF SuperTurismo races using Proton vehicles will be supported by Team Proton R3 personnel for the remaining three events this year. Though each team will be independently run managed, R3 will provide technical and set-up know-how before and during the race, with the specific aim to improve their performance and inculcate best industry practices.
“Our long history of competing means there is a wealth of knowledge at Team Proton R3’s disposal. At the same time, we want to get more involved at the grassroots level as we feel PROTON and R3 should play a bigger role in the development of motorsports in Malaysia. These two separate programmes will allow us to be involved on two fronts simultaneously while also showcasing the ability of Proton cars to compete in races” said Gary Lee, head of Team Proton R3.
“At PROTON, we value our competition heritage and acknowledge our cars remain a popular choice at all levels of racing and rallying. We invest to compete in local and international events because we believe motorsports is a fertile environment to develop the best engineers. The lady drivers search and mentor programmes are just the starting point and we hope our efforts will spur more involvement from other automotive companies to develop the local racing scene,” added Dr Li Chunrong, Chief Executive Officer of PROTON.
It seems the new management of Proton, even though they may be from Geely, has faith in Proton as regards to motorsport. A very good thing indeed. Let's also hope that the two programmes unearth some great future motorsport talents.
Selected drivers and teams for MSF-R3 Racers Mentor Programme:
Mohd Hafiz Saad #248
Nik Shahrul Fadli Nik Mansor #141
Alban Raymond De Sauza #16
Muhammad Faishal Othman #180
Md. Shah Hashim #387
Contestants for MSF-R3 Lady Drivers Search:
Ng Aik Sha
Samanda Lee
Nurul Husna Nasharuddin
Nursharina Nor Ramlle
Dayangku Faratiwan Adnil
Rozana Rahmat
Umi Nasirah Sulaiman
Zaidah Mohd Ishak
Nor Azirah Mohd Azhar
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