news

Afiq Ikhwan Dominates Silverstone

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 16:26:43 +0100

Afiq Ikhwan has returned to form, making a clean sweep of wins, unchallenged, at Silverstone Grand Prix Circuit this weekend for JK Racing Asia Series. After winning the first race on Satureday, Ikhwan claimed his second win, once again from pole, setting the record straight that he is still very much a fierce competitor in the Series.

In Round 9, Afiq won the race with a 3.329 seconds margin. He completed ten laps of the 5.901km circuit pulling away right from the start, opening up a gap of more than five seconds in the early part of the race. Afiq also set the fastest lap of the day when he completed lap four in 2:10.697.

On Sunday 8 Sep 2012 race, Afiq claimed his second win, once again from pole with a time of 22.03.548 of the 10 laps race without much competition from the other drivers.

Afiq Ikhwan Takes Two Poles At Silverstone

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 16:15:50 +0100

Afiq Ikhwan clocked the two best times in the qualifying session for Rounds 9 & 10 at the historic Silverstone Grand Prix Circuit on Friday 7 September 2012. Afiq clocked the best time of 2.09.596 which won him the pole position for Round 9 and the second best time of 2.09.614 won him the pole position for Round 10.

The Petronas backed Meritus.GP driver looks to be back on form after a difficult season so far that has left him fourth in the points table.With more than half of a second advantage over the second grid driver, Afiq was confidence that he will wins of Round 9 & 10 schedule at 2.00pm 9 September 2012.

The full qualifying result can be viewed here

Afiq Ikhwan Dominates in Singapore

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 09:08:17 +0100

Afiq Ikhwan Yazid continues his winning streak by winning both the Rounds 11 & 12 of the JK Racing Asia Series 2011 hosted by Singapore GP making it 6 in a row. In Sentul ndonesia Afiq won all the 4 rounds of the JK Asia Racing Series with record breaking performance where he broke the Qualifying Record set in 2008 Sean McDough and also the Race record set in 2009 by Rio Haryanto. , Afiq Ikhwan Yazid, showed his strength at the Singapore event and finished on top of the time sheet with a best time of 2.23.779 during practice.

Despite the warm and humid weather conditions, the qualifying session which was ran under the flood lights was exciting and Ikhwan Yazid took the pole with 2.21.715 breaking the qualifying record of 2:21.843 set by Doru Sechelariu of Mahara in 2008. Two red flags disrupted the qualifying and Ikhwan managed to clock his fastest lap at the very last minute of the qualifying session.

In Race 1 (Round 11), Afiq Ikhwan managed to pull a gap close to 4 sec but the advantage diminished when an incident forced the Safety Car to be on the track. After the race was restarted Afiq maintain his lead from Nabil and the hard charging Lucas Auer. A mistake made by Nabil allowed Lucas to take the 2nd position. Few laps, another incident happened involving Raj Bharat which call for the Safety Car to be on track. Afiq Ikhwan managed to maintain his focus and went to take the top podium spot with Lucas coming 2nd and Nabil 3rd.

Ikhwan continued his winning drive in Race 2 (Round 12) and was followed closely by compatriot Nabil Jefri. Afiq Ikhwan kept his cool and was able to control the race. Similar to the earlier race the Safety car was deployed twice at Lap 3 and later lap 6. Lucas Auer drove from the 9th spot and was 2nd when the when the Safety car was called in. During this safety car period Lucas has a technical fault on his car and was shown the black and orange flag forcing him to come in to rectify the problem.

After the restart, ikhwan managed to pull a gap from Nabil who was then 2nd and finished the race almost a second ahead of Nabil and Duvashen who came 3rd.

With the excellent result Afiq Ikhwan has now close the gap to the leader Lucas Auer to only 9 points.

Afiq Ikhwan Dominates In Indonesia

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 06:13:25 +0100

It was a perfect weekend weekend for Afiq Ikhwan when he dominated all four rounds of the JK Racing Asia Series at Sentul International Circuit. The Indonesian circuit seemed to be his lucky charm as he claimed his first win and went on to complete all four races with wins. Afiq Ikhwan also beat the Series record at the circuit to claim pole position for JK Racing Asia Series round 7. His time of 1:30.918, beat the qualifying lap record held by Sean McDonagh who set the record back in 2008 by 1.1 second. In Round 8 Afiq Ikhwan when on with an outstanding performance to break the race record of fastest time set in 2009 by Rio Haryanto by 0,35 seconds.

Afiq Ikhwan won all the 4 races from pole and led all the 57 laps of the 4 rounds. Afiq also clocked 3 fastest laps at the races. Thanking his team, family and team manager and sponsors, Ikhwan says he is blessed to have a great team behind him and credits them for the wonderful weekend.

By scoring maximum points in Indonesia, Afiq Ikhwan is now 2nd in the Championship ladder 34 point behind the leader Lucas Auer of Austria.

Afiq And Akash Secure Two More Podiums For Consistent Meritus.GP

Tue, 31 May 2011 03:29:53 +0100

SEPANG (May 28, 2011) – Mohd Afiq Ikhwan and Akash Nandy, from www.Meritus.GP, performed remarkably to secure podium positions in Round 3 and 4 of the JK Racing Asia Series at the Sepang Circuit here today to prove the team’s superior consistency this season.

Meritus.GP, who have PETRONAS as its key sponsor, have won four podiums in four rounds of the JK Racing Asia Series and appear poised to continue their outstanding performances in the remaining two rounds (Round 5 and 6) tomorrow which is being run as part of the Asian Festival of Speed (AFOS).

Afiq, second twice in the first two rounds, made it three straight podiums when he finished third in Round 3 today.

“I had a bad qualifying session and started from sixth place. After a few laps in the race the safety car appeared and I took advantage of that situation,” said Afiq. “I kept my time consistent and it paid off. This is my third podium in three races. I hope there will be many more but we’re still finding the set up of the car. So let’s see how it goes,” Afiq said.

“Car was good but it was just too bad with the puncture. Certainly not a good weekend so far, will have to make up for it in tomorrow’s race,” he said.

Afiq’s hopes of a better performance later in the evening were blown away when he suffered a puncture. The Malaysian had started fifth and was very quickly up into third place at the second corner on lap two. To his horror, a car struck his rear tyre which led to a puncture.

“We go him back into the race but he was already 62seconds down and to save tyres for tomorrow, we retired him,” explained Meritus.GP’s Peter Thompson.”Not a fantastic weekend as we struggled with the tyres in the qualifying. The tyre compound is very different from what we are used to and with the wet weather conditions,, it made things tough.”

Round 3 was eventually won by Lucas Auer of EuroInternational. Irfan IIyas (PETRONAS Mofaz) was second in a time of 24:06.807s. Afiq was 3.136s behind the champion.

While Afiq suffered some bad luck today, his teammate Akash was on fire and kept the Meritus.GP flag flying high with a third placing in Round 4. Akash shot out of the grid and took his chances well to move up into third behind Lucas Auer and Irfan Ilylas.

“I started from 7th and fought up to third to finish on the podium. So it was a good race after the disappointment in the morning. Did not finish (the morning race) because of puncture,” said Akash. “I had a better start in the second race and I always kept pace with the leaders. I fought hard to maintain position and I would like to thank my team for all the hard work to find the right set-up. And also thank you to my parents for the opportunity. I hope that I can keep up with the performance for tomorrow where I will be on third for the race tomorrow. “

Formerly known as Formula BMW Pacific, the Series is now run under Motorsport Asia with the backing of Indian tyre manufacturer, JK Tyre & Industries.

The level of competition in the Series has increased as evidenced right from the start, with the top eight qualifiers coming in within one second of one another. There was plenty of action throughout the first four races with battles all the way down the order right to the closing stages of the races.

Rounds 3-6 of the JK Racing Asia Series will be held as part of the Asian Festival Of Speed event on 28-29 May at Sepang International Circuit. This will be the second outing in Malaysia before the Series travels to Indonesia, China, Singapore and India.

www.Meritus.GP are the most successful team in the history of the series, having won seven consecutive team titles and five of the Drivers’ titles.

Results
Round 3: 1. Lucas Auer 24:03:671, 2. Irfan Ilyas 24:06:807, 3. Afiq Yazid 24:10:170
Round 4: 1. Lucas Auer 22:10:417, 2. Irfan Ilyas 22:16:641, 3. Akash Nandy 22:33:964

Prepared By www.meritus.gp

JKRAS Round 1

Mon, 30 May 2011 02:44:58 +0100

The Round 1 & 2 of the JKRAS was run as a supporting event to the Malaysian Grand Prix. In qualifying the best 2 qualifying times determine the grids for Round 1 & 2.

It was a very close qualifying when the top 3 drivers were separated with a tenth of a second. The top 3 qualifiers were

1. Lucas Auer - 2.11.643 (1st best time) & 2.11.677 (2nd best time)
2. Nabil Jefri - 2.11.744 (1st best time) & 2.22.767 (2nd best time)
3. Afiq Yazid - 2.22.747 (1st best time) & 2.11.750 (2nd best time)

Afiq scores two second places in the first two rounds of the JKRAS. In the first race, at an instance Afiq fell back to fourth after a mistake but managed to fight back and gain the 2nd position from Auer.

In the second race Afiq started from second on the grid and managed to keep the positon till the chequered flag. It was early the race he managed to put some pressure on Auer but later had to defend his second place from Nabil. Afiq and Nabil exchanged places at the last 2 laps of the race.

The results:-

Race 1

1. Nabil Jeffri
2. Afiq Yazid
3. Lucas Auer

The race result for Race 1 is still provisional as Nabil was claimed to have a foul start.

Race 2

1. Lucas Auer
2. Afiq yazid
3. Nabil Jeffri

MeritusGP announce Petronas As Sponsor

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 09:13:00 +0100

Kuala Lumpur 4th April 2011: MeritusGP has announced PETRONAS as their key sponsor. The iconic petroleum brand uses the sport to promote and win international brand loyalty, complimenting their visionary global commercial efforts by supporting the development of the local motorsport industry.

The relationship with PETRONAS will see the red MeritusGP cars displaying the PETRONAS Syntium logos in the JK series, which supports the Petronas Malaysian F1GP; the JK series has sixteen additional races and also supports the Singapore and Indian F1GP’s.

The announcement was made at an event held in Subang Jaya this afternoon. Present during the announcement was En Mohammed Medan Abdullah, Petronas, Senior General Manager, Corporate Services Division.

It's Getting Tough

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 02:31:57 +0100

The Last testing that was held from 7-10 March 2011, saw that drivers from other teams had improved and are catching up. Afiq was second best overall to Lucas Auer of Eurointernational. Earlier testing Afiq dominates by being on the top of the time sheet 8 out of 10 sessions.

The last sets of testing saw Afiq's dominant diminished. Driver from other team like Petronas have also improved and at times better Afiq's testing times. The last set of testing also saw lots of new tires being used by most of the teams.

Peter Thompson, the team President quoted, "A great deal of development work to be evaluated over the coming weeks and with Afiq Ikhwan second overall behind Lucas Auer in the JK Racing Asia Series during the past 2 weeks, we have a strong platform to develop our ultimate setu up for the firts round of the JK Racing Asia Series".

The JK Racing Asia Series Championship will start as a supporting event for the Petronas Malaysia Grandprix from the 8-10 April 2011. More than 18 driver are expected to fill the grid of the 1st and 2nd round of the series.

Afiq Ihkwan Tops The Time Sheets For The 10th Time

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 10:05:49 +0100

It was all good for Meritus and Afiq Ikhwan when Afiq Ikhwan topped the time sheet again for the 10th time out of 12 sessions. Due to the rain yesterday the track has been a litlle slower than it used to be. Afiq Ikhwan completed the 4 sessions testing today ahead of his rivals at all the sessions. Afiq Ikhwan was not on track yesterday at 4th session and he was 2nd when Richard Bradley was faster by 0.007 sec in one of the session at the 1st day of testing this week.

View the time sheet of the 3rd session <here>

Testing Resume With Wet Tires And Afiq Set The Pace

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 04:54:28 +0100

Mar 1, 2011 : Meritus-GP resume their testing in preparation for the new JK Racing Asia Series at Sepang F1 Circuit with Malaysian driver Afiq Ikhwan. The team had the opportunity to test the JK tires as a result of a heavy early morning downpour at the circuit. Team Meritus-GP was delighted with the result when Afiq Ikhwan set the pace in the wet tires 0.5 sec ahead of Eurasia driver Richard Bradley who had an outstanding performance at last years Formula BMW Pacific Championship.

Meritus-GP will continue their series of testing until Mar 10, 2011.

View the time sheet <here>