Although being a factory-backed team, Proton R3’s journey in dominating the 2014 Malaysia Super Series is not an easy task. With competitors like R-Engineering and Team Sakura Tedco Racing gaining momentum in incredible speeds, both James Veerapan and Syafiq Ali would have to give an extra mile to even make it on the podium.
Commandeering the new Proton Suprima S, Syafiq Ali still has a lot to learn about the new race car as it has only seen two races back in Round 1. And the same goes to Proton as the car still needs a lot of bugs to iron out before it could run competitively in its category.
“We are still trying a lot of things as we do not have any existing data on the car. Everything is new, and what we can do is change, try and do testing on the 20 minutes practice, qualifying and the race itself,” said Syafiq.
“The Suprima S chassis is pretty similar to the Preve. The character is 50:50; half Neo and half Preve, so basically we have to start from scratch again and we could not use the data from the Preve as a guideline for the setup, with the exception of the engine,” he added.
Even with the challenging conditions, he managed to take the Suprima S through qualifying and secured the third spot on the grid in the Malaysia Touring Production category with a 2:38.658. But that is just halfway through the journey as the race posed another challenge for the new Proton race car.
“At the start, I got overtaken by three cars in the same category but by Turn 2, I managed to reclaim third position and stayed there until the pit stop. After the pit stop, the car in front of us (R-Engineering) has stopped and was unable to continue the race, allowing us to advance to second position. The team asked me to push but their pace (Team Sakura Tedco Racing) was so fast and the gap was too big.”
Although there was still a lot to be worked on the Suprima S, Proton R3 and Syafiq did a great job in pushing the car to a respectable second place finish in Round 2.
In the Preve R3 race car, James Veerapan expressed the same concern where Proton is lacking the pace that other competitive teams are showing.
“It’s just tougher this year, winning is going to be a lot more meaningful and there’s a lot we need to work on. Ah Lai and Tedco did ridiculously fast, but I guess that is where the competition is and that is where we need to be as well,” said James.
“We’ve tinkered around with the car, trying to get a bit more horsepower, a bit more torque, but I don’t know where we are losing out. We know our pace is in the 38s, but even with that it is quite hard to keep up with them. Just hope for the best and don’t give up is the key for now.”
Despite the fierce competition, James surged on during the qualifying. Although he got off with a slow start, after warming up the tires and burning off a bit of fuel, James managed to clock a best time of 2:39.315, earning him the fourth spot on the grid for the MTC category.
The race was not a walk in the park either where there were a couple of incidents in the start. The merging between the TP and the MTC caused James to come into contact at T2 and T4, creating quite a gap between him and the race leaders. The car was also giving James a hard time after some aggressive driving.
“I killed the front end of my car; there was no grip and I could not turn, it was very difficult and I had to brake early. We will need to work on that issue. It is okay when he car is quick in the qualifying, but this is a 1-hour race. We want the car to be a quick from the start all the way to the end,” he added.
Even through all the challenges and starting the race in fourth, James managed to bring the car through the checkered flag in third, securing another podium spot for Proton in Round 2.
“The podium is the best I could ask for; third place is good after starting from fourth. But personally, I am not happy. The team also recognizes that there’s quite a bit of work needed to be done just to catch up with the rest. It was a very hard race.”
