Merdeka Millennium Endurance Will Remain As a 12-Hour Race

The annual Merdeka Millennium Endurance Race (MMER), organized and promoted by Sepang International Circuit (SIC) as part of Malaysia’s National Day celebrations, will remain as a 12-hour contest.

Announcing this today, SIC Chairman Datuk Mokhzani Tun Dr Mahathir said that maintaining its current 12-hour format was in the interest of the local teams competing in the lower classes and with smaller budgets; and in the overall promotion of domestic motor sports.   

“MMER has always been seen as the catalysts to promote domestic motor sports. In many ways, having the Class B and C cars achieves that aim; and having Class A & O cars gives MMER an international standing.

“Without a doubt, today the Class A and the open class dominate the event and have attracted world class drivers, cars and teams. They will also have better and bigger budgets to compete in MMER.

“Generally, Asia has still got a long way to go before professional teams dominate private entries who are really in it for fun and experience. As such, going to 24-hours will penalize more teams and discourage possible entrants. I foresee MMER will remain as a 12-hour race for a few more years to come,” Mokhzani said.

Introduced at the turn of the millennium, the MMER is currently divided into four categories with Class C for cars below 1600cc as the lowest category. In its first two years, the event also had a category for cars below 1300cc, which had long been scrapped with the increase of entries from the higher-powered race cars.

Class B is contested by cars with engines between 1601cc and 1900cc while production cars with engine capacity of more than 1900cc are grouped under Class A. Modified race cars are categorized under the open class.

A total of 102 cars registered for the just concluded 2008 Petronas Primax 3 Merdeka Millennium Endurance Race where only 77 cars were promoted to the actual race as accordance to the maximum number allowed by the FIA circuit license issued for SIC.

In view of the overwhelming response from the international teams and drivers over the past few years, SIC had announced last year that it would be looking into ways develop the event further including looking into the possibility of making it a 24-hour race like the LeMans and Nurburgring 24-Hours races.

Mokhzani said : “The evolution of MMER will be to segregate the slower cars from the fastest. While nothing has been decided, there is an idea to give Class B and C cars an endurance race of their own, possibly 300 or 500km. This could be an extension of the MSS (Malaysian Super Series) where one race in the MSS will be an endurance race.

“Doing it this way will not cost the competitors extra money. It could be timed to coincide round Merdeka; but the Merdeka weekend slot will always be for MMER 12-hours,” he said, adding that SIC would be making a comprehensive study on various aspects of event before making any decision. 

Taking into account of the fasting month starting by the third week of August next year, the 2009 Merdeka Millennium Endurance Race, which would be a landmark 10th edition of the race, has been scheduled from August 6 to 8 with the race running on Saturday, August 8, 2009. 

“There is also an idea to allow diesel cars into MMER. This has already happened in LeMans and other endurance races. We have to study if supply of diesel in Malaysia meets international standards and if diesel can be supplied by anyone for cars to use. The top cars in LMP1 in LeMans were all diesel,” said Mokhzani, who also highlighted on the high numbers of cars failing to finish the race on August 30 in stressing his point why the MMER needed to stay as a 12-hour race.

Won by Team Porsche Club Racing Singapore from the open class in a Porsche 997 RSR, the category saw four cars failing to finish. The LKM Racing failed to start due to mechanical problems while Team 3 Crown Racing of Thailand was disqualified.

Class A had more retirees with only nine of the 20 cars finishing the race while Class B had only seven taking the checkered flag. For the sub-1600cc cars in Class C, nine of the 18 cars failed to grueling 12-hour test to finish the race.

Of the 77 cars that competed this year, 20 cars and 60 drivers competed in the open class which featured nine local and 21 international racers. Class A also had 20 cars and 60 drivers where some 50 percent of the drivers were foreigners with most of the local drivers and domestic teams filling in Class B and C due to their limited budget.     

For this year, SIC had reviewed the qualifiers quota with Class A and the open class being allowed 20 cars each as compared to a combined total of 25 from the previous years. Qualifiers from Class B and C were reduced to 19 and 18 respectively as part of the organizers’ efforts to enhance safety on the track.  

In his response to the changes, Malaysia’s top driver Tengku Djan Ley Tengku Mahaleel, who feared that local drivers would be getting less opportunities to race with the trend of changes for the MME, had proposed for SIC to introduce a series of mini endurance races for the Class B and Class C teams and drivers to compete.

While he recognized the need to emphasis safety at the race, Tengku Djan said it was unfair for the Class B and C teams and drivers to be denied opportunity to compete at the MMER as ‘they had been the strong proponents to the event when SIC needed the support’. 

To this, Mokhzani said: “Tengku Djan's idea of having a series of endurance races is good; but it needs to be studied thoroughly as cost is always a factor for competitors. And, we need to see where can SIC get support to host this series as well as getting the spectators to the stands.”

The 2008 Petronas Primax 3 Merdeka Millennium Endurance Race was supported by Petronas, Silverstone, Cartrade ABT, Celcom, Naza Kia, Lanson and RTM as the Host Broadcaster.