2nd, 3rd and 8th Overall, Three Class Wins and the Team Championship Award For Perodua M5 Racing Team

The Perodua M5 Racing Team completed round 2 of the FELDA-AAM Malaysian Rally Championship held in Paka, Terengganu in second and third place overall and in the process taking three class wins as well winning the team championship.

Lead driver Kan Chee Hong and co-driver Bernard Chin in the experimental 4WD turbocharged Perodua MyVi finished the two-day rally in second overall, winning class P11, and was some 5 minutes and 40 seconds adrift of winner Karamjit Singh who in the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution 3, posted a total time of 1 hour 59 minutes and 39 seconds.

Perodua’s Lim Leong Onn and co-driver Kamarul Anuar, and P. Nandakumar and co-driver Suresh Sharma, finished third and eighth overall respectively to secure wins in classes P10 and P9.

“This is the first best result for the Perodua MyVi and the car ran a textbook and problem-free rally despite the extremely rough conditions,” said Perodua M5 Racing Team manager Gary Chua.

“We started Leg 2 of the rally trailing Karamjit by 42 seconds and the longer special stages today obviously worked to the advantage of his bigger capacity and much more powerful car. This was something we expected. Nevertheless, a second, third and eighth placing overall over a single weekend and together with securing three class wins is still an outstanding result for us. It was a good outing and the element of luck was also on our side.”

Lady luck was indeed smiling on the team with Kan so nearly being dropped further down the field after experiencing a puncture in one of the stages.

Chua also attributed Kan’s performance to brand new engine revisions made to the expiremental MyVI. The car was making its competition debut this year after missing the opening round held in Negeri Sembilan in March and only taking part in two rounds last season that was more of a shakedown exercise.

“On paper, the MyVI is 100kg heavier than the more nimble Kelisa, but has shown exceptional reliability and endurance, although it was upstaged by the Kelisa last season. With a newly tweaked and more powerful engine however, it has quickly eliminated this disadvantage,” explained Chua.
“We see plenty of potential in the car being competitive, and for one, it certainly attracts plenty of attention. Last year was more about the driver and team learning and familiarizing themselves with the characteristics of a new car.

“With the MyVi, we are optimistic of a good year ahead.”

Round 3 of the FELDA-AAM Malaysian Rally Championship, which is also a round of the FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship, is scheduled to take place in Johor in August.

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