Saladin Mazlan of the Felda Rally Team won the heated battle for first place in the fourth Round of the Malaysian Rally Championship 2009 (MRC) in a time of 1hr 23min 50.1sec. He took home the trophies for first place Overall and first in the 4WD and P12 categories.
Saladin started Leg Two today with a 24.4 second lead over defending champion, Karamjit Singh of the GSR Pennzoil Racing Team, who was clearly on a mission to reduce the deficit. Karamjit finished the Rally 20.1sec behind Saladin.
“We were the fastest overall today, we won the Leg, but we couldn’t make up the time we lost yesterday. We found a leak in our turbo pipe in the first Service today which had been slowing us down. That fixed, we pushed as hard as we could but there weren’t enough kilometres in the Stages to reduce the time,” said Karamjit’s co-driver Jagdev Singh.
“Saladin drove a superb rally and did a beautiful job,” Jagdev added. “It’s been a long time since we’ve had competition like this. This is what rallying is all about!”
A delighted Saladin drove his Proton Gen 2 home to a jubilant team. “We were pushing all the way but we were always in control. I think we have another ten percent to give, so in the next rally, the battle will continue,” Saladin said. “To win like this gives us a good feeling.” The final Round will be held in Perak on 5th & 6th December.
The two leaders left a huge gap between them and Gunaseelan Rajoo and Muhammad Rafiq Udhaya who finished third and fourth respectively. Guna finished 10min 57sec behind Karamjit and Rafiq was a further 44sec behind him.
Rafiq had finished yesterday in third place but lost critical seconds when he slammed his Subaru Impreza into a tree in Special Stage (SS) 19 giving Guna the all clear to race home for a podium finish. Rafiq took home the N4 category trophy.
Hong Kong driver Clayton Check Kai Liang, was the fastest 2WD for the Rally and took home the P11 trophy.
Junior driver Faidzal Alang continued with his dream run of strong finishes this season and took home the P10 and Junior category trophies. Faidzal won his ticket into the MRC 2009 via the reality TV show Malaysia’s Next Rally Champion, Zero.2.Hero. He has continued to exceed everyone’s expectations and clearly has a promising future in Rallying. “I hope I am an inspiration to the next round of competitors in Zero.2.Hero,” he said.
The P9 category trophy went to brother and sister team Jamaluddin and Rozita Tukimin.
The Rally was held in the oil palm plantations of Ladang KLIA, Sepang. Competitors completed 20 Stages totaling 481.08 km (including transport stages) over two days.
Full results and photographs of the MRC Round Four can be found at www.malaysianrally.com
Results for Top Five:
1. Saladin Mazlan/Arish Qutb Ahmad Khan Proton Gen 2 1:23:50.1
2. Karamjit Singh/Jagdev Singh Mitsubishi Lancer 1:24:10.2
3. Gunaseelan Rajoo/Mohd Izwan Abdullah Mitsubishi Lancer 1:35:07.2
4. Muhammad Rafiq Udhaya/Sean F. Gregory Subaru Impreza 1:35:51.2
5. Clayton Check Kai Liang/Tracey Li Pan Chi Proton Satria 1:40:46.6
