Nabil Scores In Azerbaijan; Fahmi Crashes In Italy

While we celebrate Nico Rosberg’s and Mercedes-AMG’s success in last weekend’s Formula 1 race, Porsche’s unexpected win at 24 Hours Le Mans and Toyota Gazoo’s heartbreak at that same race, let’s give a moment to appreciate our local boys’ racing efforts.

At the same circuit in Baku, Azerbaijan, which hosted the Formula 1 European Grand Prix, Malaysian driver Nabil Jeffri scored his first points in the GP2 series after securing a commendable seventh place in an incident-filled Race 2.

Nabil, who races for Arden International, collected two championship points and put his name and the country in 18th place after three rounds of competition.

“It is a great feeling to obtain 7th placing in the very challenging and difficult Race 2. There were a lot of
incidents in the race and I am fortunate to finish the race as like many others, I was also involved in the
incidents. This is perhaps because Baku was a new track and everyone, including myself, was still
familiarising themselves with the track but pushing hard for the best results at the same time. Personally, I find the track very challenging because it’s very tight and it’s a street circuit,” Nabil said.

“I was not so lucky in Race 1 and in the qualifying session and was involved in incidents that affected my
results. Overall, though, I have a good feel for the car and achieved a good pace especially in Race 2. I’m
getting much more comfortable with the car after three races. The team truly did very well and I thank
them for their support. Hopefully, these results will be a good launching pad for better results in the
future races,” he added.

In the opening race, Nabil was in a strong Top 10 position for most of the race and was P3 at the restart but tyre wear over the next few laps forced him to retire on Lap 14.

After a dramatic weekend in Baku, Nabil and his fellow drivers now turn their attention to the next
round in Spielberg, Austria in just two weeks’ time, on 1 to 3 July 2016. Malaysia’s GP3 driver Akash Neil
Nandy too will be seeing action during the same weekend in Spielberg, with the GP2 and GP3 races held
in conjunction with the F1 Austrian Grand Prix.

Meanwhile, on the two-wheel front, Muhammad Zulfahmi Khairuddin faced a challenging weekend at the Riviera di Rimini Round of the Superbike World Championship 2016 in Italy.

Fahmi, Malaysia’s only competitor in the WorldSBK, started the race from 29th position on the grid in
the WorldSSP category and managed to advance to 15th after 11 laps but did not finish due to a crash.

Fahmi, who rides for Team Orelac Racing VerdNatura said, “In the race, I was doing well and gaining positions lap after lap. The early part was not so easy because my windscreen was getting sprayed with oil from a rider in front of me and it wasn’t easy to see through it. I tried to tell the rider what was going on, but I don’t think he understood. I managed to pass him on lap four and carried on pushing hard because I wanted to place as high as possible in the results table. I was in 15th after 10 laps and chasing 14th place, but maybe I pushed a bit too hard and lost the front at the last turn. It was really unfortunate because I had worked so hard from the tenth row of the grid.”

Fahmi’s next race is at the Geico US Round on 8 to 10 July 2016.

As we learned in Le Mans that even the best can falter, let’s hope for the best for our boys in the next race.