Honda Malaysia Racing Team announces MME participation
The Honda Malaysia Racing Team (HMRT) has just officially announced its participation in the 11th edition of the Merdeka Millennium Endurance Race (MME), which will be held at Sepang International Circuit on Sunday, 8 August 2010.
Consisting of a 22-strong crew sourced from the workforce of Honda Malaysia, the team will once again be fielding the Civic Type R which saw action last year. Returning together with the Type R to compete in the Class A Championship are its drivers Eddie Lew Kar Wai, Aaron Lim and Rueben Won.
Now in its eighth year participating in MME, HMRT will look to build on its 2nd place finish in Class A2 accomplished last year by the same trio of drivers. The team was set up with the objective of creating a platform which allows local talents to thrive and to build up the local team’s expertise in motorsports
Mr. Toru Takahashi, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Honda Malaysia who is also the HMRT Team Principal said, “I am very proud to witness the improvement of the HMRT from a team guided by MUGEN to today’s fully Malaysian team. Our local Honda associates demonstrate commendable passion and commitment in this local motorsports to build up their skills and knowledge, and to support each other towards a victorious MME race 2010.”
“Over the past few years, HMRT gradually became more independent from the guidance and supervision of MUGEN from Japan. Today, the team is confident enough to manage on their own. This in itself is a significant achievement and a big motivation for the team. This is also the ultimate objective of HMRT – to train and build up the skills of local talents to thrive in the motorsports and automotive arena. This year, 11 members from last year’s team returned to HMRT to lead in different divisions and to transfer their skills and knowledge to the other new HMRT members,” Takahashi added.
One of the senior HMRT members, Muhd Faizul said, “One of the biggest factors in helping us achieve 2nd position last year was good communication amongst the team members and great teamwork. No one is above anyone else. We all work together towards the one single goal. I am the fuel man leader for HMRT this year. My most important responsibility is to motivate the new team members and familiarize them with the job. I will also share with them what we learnt last year and how we can improve for this year. I sincerely hope that HMRT can win this year and learn from last year’s mistakes, focus and improve the weaknesses to ensure zero mistakes during the race.”
In addition to its participation of MME, HMRT will also be making its presence felt at Sepang in the upcoming Super GT race on 19-20 June 2010 with the Honda HSV-010 GT race car. A series of live online interviews is being scheduled on the official HMRT Facebook page on 16-17 June, and Autoworld is among the media involved in proceedings. Stay tuned for details on how you can follow our interview live with HMRT on Facebook.
Pictures: Official Honda release.
