Razlan hopes Yamaha provides best machine for Hafizh in Sepang

PUTRAJAYA: Sepang International Circuit (SIC) chief executive officer Datuk Razlan Razali hopes Yamaha will provide the best machine to national MotoGP racer, Hafizh Syahrin Abdullah in the coming Malaysian Grand Prix next month.

Razlan said the performance of the Monster Yamaha Tech3 rider especially since the Czech Republic Grand Prix in August was slightly down due to problems with the machine.

“Actually I am worried after the Brno (Czech Republic GP) race when his performance suffered as he was facing problems with the machine.

“If we see especially the Aragon GP, all Yamaha riders did not do well and we know that among the four Yamaha machines, Hafizh was given the less performing package.

“So I am appealing to Yamaha to give a machine package on par with Zarco (Johann Zarco),” he said after attending the MotoGP coordination meeting with the Youth and Sports Ministry at Menara KBS here yesterday.

Meanwhile, Razlan said sales of the Malaysian MotoGP tickets was very encouraging and SIC was targeting 100,000 motorsports fan to flood the circuit for the race on Nov 4.

He said Hafizh’s participation in MotoGP this season was one of the contributing factors for the good ticket sales.

“We have sold more than 80,000 tickets and it is still going on. We also want to open a new hill stand taken by Redbull and about 10,000 tickets were sold there.

“The announcement that Hafizh was racing at MotoGP was the main draw for the fast ticket sales compared to last season and we estimate at least 100,000 spectators will be coming to the race day,” he said.

For the record, Hafizh who was involved in motoring sports since 9, had raced in Moto2 for four seasons since 2014 with Petronas Raceline before being offered to race in the premier class for the 2018 season. Bernama