Mohamed Hafez “Mycil” Kamarudin in a Toyota GR Yaris again proved unstoppable as he went on to claim his third successive race win in three rounds at the MSF Superturismo last weekend at the Petronas Sepang International Circuit.

The 37–year-old finished the 22-lap race around the circuit’s North Track ahead of Indonesian driver Umar Abdullah in a Honda Civic FD2R in the Super Touring class, but the gap he had this time was only marginal at 2.48 seconds. The pair of Russell Tan and Wu Junyi Ken in a Honda Civic FD2R came in third.

“Contrary to belief, it wasn’t an easy victory and I was constantly under pressure from Umar who returned to round 3 with an even more powerful race car,” said Mohamed Hafez. “Running a turbocharged car does give us some advantages but there is also the disadvantage of weight and reliability.

“I took the race of opting for high boost (on the turbo) and the gamble paid off. During the earlier part of the season we did have some issues and concerns with the engine cooling but that’s all been sorted out now and reliability seems to be on our side. The goal is to keep doing what we do and hopefully win the overall championship.”

Mohamed Hafez admitted that the race strategy from the very beginning of the season has always been to extend the race lead as soon as the lights turned green. His objective this year is to win the championship after finishing second last season with two race wins, two second places and one third place finish.

“We don’t want to get bogged down in any traffic and thus decided that we need to rocket into the front as soon as the race starts and prevent taking any chances.”

Round 3 of the MSF Superturismo featured more than 200 drivers competing in 10 individual classes of racing with the highlight on the 4 premier classes: Super Touring; Vision HKS GT86 x BRZ Racing Cup; Super Production; and Rennplatz Standard Production.

The Vision HKS GT86 x BRZ Racing Cup meanwhile, turned out to be a game of Chess between Rennplatz Racing’s Ng Teck Ming and Fawster SMRT’s Fahrizal Hasan who were head to head in the 22-lap race. Both drivers pitted at the same time during the compulsory pit stop and the race was eventually won leaving the pit lane when Ng got ahead of the then race leader Fahrizal. Both drivers were almost equal on pace and in the end only 0.206 seconds separated the two drivers as Ng claimed the chequered flag. Finishing third was EXN-JR Speed Sucimuci driver Muhd Khairul Nizam Yaacob who was more than 42 seconds behind.

Singaporean driver Jonathan Xie won the Super Production class, making it his second race win in three rounds. In second position and nearly 15 seconds behind was Nurul Husna Nasharuddin in a Honda Jazz, while in third place and another 4,8 seconds adrift was Thang Jiun Sheng in a Proton Satria Neo.

In the Rennplatz Standard Production class, the pair of Hayden Haikal and Aiman Asyraaf in their Honda Fit GK5 RS sealed their second win in three rounds, finishing the 22-lap race almost 46 second ahead of their nearest rival Tan Yi Hong and Tan Jek Hong in a Honda Jazz GK5. In third place was Rennplatz Racing Team’s Yip Ka Man who piloted a Suzuki Swift Sport ZC32S.

Meanwhile, the MSF Superbikes which was held during the first half of the day, saw a total of 6 classes of motorcycle racing taking place. This included Super Rookie; GP X; GP Pro; GP Masters; All-Stars; and Super Sport.  It was the first time that the series raced on the 2.706km North Track layout as opposed to the entire length of the circuit and the racing was extremely close and dramatic at times with riders taking on six technical corners, two sweeping corners and a single long straight.

In the Super Rookie class, Danny Tan Chin To won the 20-lap race by the narrowest of margins when his Ducati Panigale V4S crossed the finish line just 0.851 seconds ahead of Ainul Zaquan Md Zuyl on board a Yamaha R1M. In thid place was Eric Chi Chuen Chau on a Yamaha R1 a further 2.5 seconds adrift.

The GP Master class was won Heng Si Kiat on a Yamaha R1M followed by the Yamaha R1 of Ilija Vudc, and Ahmad Faez Yahaya who rounded up the top three positions astride a Suzuki GSX-R1000R.

Chia Zhen Xian with a BMW S1000RR meanwhile, went on to claim victory in the GP Pro class, again just marginally ahead (0.126) of Irsyad Bakri on a Yamaha R1. In third place was Santhiran Nagaraju on board another Yamaha R1.