Petronas Syntium Team Grabs 1&2 Podium in 24 Hours Tokachi
August 1, 2008
After completing 637 laps, 1,440 minutes, 28 pit stops and more than 3,000 kilometers on the mileage dial, the PETRONAS Syntium Team have come away from the gruelling 24hours of Tokachi endurance race with a historic 1-2 finish, a first for the team.
In addition to featuring the season’s existing line up of drivers which included Masataka Yanagida (JPN), Fariqe Hairuman (MAS) and Tatsuya Kataoka (JPN) in the team’s No. 50 BMW Z4M Coupe; the second car featured Nobuteru Taniguchi (JPN) and Japanese youngster Hiroki Yoshida (JPN) who were joined by highly experienced guest driver Manabu Orido. Bringing his wealth of experience to boost the team’s line up, the 39-year old’s credentials include his experience in the Japanese Super GT championship, FIA GT championship and the North American NASCAR series as well as in the infamous Le Mans 24hours.
After several driver rotations as the sextet of drivers took their turns at the wheel of their respective cars throughout the duration of the 24-hours, the race witnessed several nail-biting moments brought on by the first of two safety car periods when an incident involving a car from a the different class eliminated the gaps that the drivers in both cars had built over the rest of the competition.
Recovering to rebuild the lead, the drivers still had to persevere through the intermittent drizzle that fell throughout the night portion of the race on top of the limited visibility. Nevertheless, on the 12th hour mark of the race at 3am on Monday morning saw the team chalk up its first landmark to earn five points for successfully reaching the half-way mark.
David Wong, Team Principal, PETRONAS Syntium Team: “Everyone in the crew – mechanics and engineers – did a tremendous job to prepare the cars for this difficult and demanding race. Through their efforts, the drivers had a trouble-free race. It was a flawless effort by everyone on the team! The result speaks for itself and more than makes up for the disappointment of our first outing in 2007. As this achievement is also the product of a collective effort, I must also thank all our partners including YOKOHAMA, BMW and PETRONAS for their incredible support throughout the weekend, without which none of this would have been possible.”
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what so big deal? and there is nothing to be proud of.
it is a BMW Z4 which is infamous by there reliability and endurance
try race with a campro and dont too suprise to see it cannot last for 10 laps!
its not about the car la!…its about the sponsorship dungu!
plus,a stock BMZ Z4 wont get 1-2 podium without any tuned up from the engineers..
Solid effort! well done..
what so big deal ? lets try give u the car…n see how well u perform…..
some jokers think that its easy to achieve something like this… yeah, let’s see how you do… i’m sure it must have also been 1 hell of a competitive field out there…
Congrats to the team btw…
well for the record campro did manage to go more than 10 lap without breaking.. try check atcs 1500.by the way its about the team duh…
cmon la guys.. b proud.. our motorsports industry is still growing. this is definitely a boost.
Wow,
This will signal that they WILL be the team to beat in this year’s Merdeka Race.
Well,what does do for the Mlaysian on the street? Or even those racing at SIC?? Petronas spends money everywhere else but in Malaysia…..How about sponsoring a Proton Challenge championship and revive the glory days of Malaysian motorsports………
with the menatality like u im sure ull go sooo far!! NOT!!! and for the record… a proton neo did go more than 10 laps!! if u think its so easy beating other japanese drivers such as team nissan and ohlins and so on..pls feel free to try.. and for the record as well.. i dun think u as a driver can last more than 5 laps! and its because of ppl like u… malaysia cant go far!!
wow so many douche bags nowadays in zth huh ?
winning is about having the right attitude, mentality, dedication, commitment, resources, talent and luck. it’s no easy task… This is an impressive achievement..
c’mon guys…the story tells about the team…not the car…
if you want Proton to be the part of this glory, why not ask them to do so in the frst place? or work with them and developed high quality cars to race?.
someday, you will knew why they picked that car instead of ours…
btw..kudos to them…
you act like petronas is the one to blame….take a look at the driver line-up….only 1 malaysian versus 5 japs….and fariqe hairuman comes from formula bmw…
cmon la….petronas is just a premium sponsor…its bmw that has the reins…only natural that they would use their own cars….
btw…kudos to the team…hopefully they can relicate this at the mme endurance..
cayalah…:) 24 hours tuh…
ooii… bangang!!! dun u guys looks a few years back when petronas used proton??? what hapend then???? they got beated by BMW… u think proton is a car for us to be proud??? well!!! u better think 1000x….
for me i really hated that piece of sh**… cheap car but sell expensive… so gud luck la to all who support protons….
well i’m proud of it…Team Petronas!!! I was dissapointed last year when it was won by an singaporean outfit instead of malaysian…Don’t complaint..It shows Malaysia can make the Job done..it’s abt the Team and country’s name and of course the brand…1malaysia brand under one roof..except the car…kudos..malaysia BOLEH!