Merdeka Race all set to go full throttle on national day

R3 Special projects head Adian Yein Khalid (right) getting ready to flag off a 'drifter' at the R3 Street Shootout championships drift practice track at Dataran Car Park next to One Utama's new wing. The championships was held in conjunction with the Initial D Movie carnival celebrating the premier of the racing and drifting movie.

KUALA LUMPUR: The Petronas-MSF Merdeka Race on Sunday will be an even more challenging one with a full grid confirmed for the 111-lap endurance race.

More than 400 cars and motorcycles have entered for the highly anticipated endurance event, which consists of the SuperTurismo battle for cars and also the MSF Superbikes.

In the main SuperTurismo race, the event has grown from an 88-lap race to 99 laps in 2024, and now 111 laps with a projected race time of five hours.

The race will offer RM5,000 for the overall winner, RM3,000 for the overall runner-up and RM2,000 for the overall second runner-up. This will be in addition to prize monies per category (RM3,500 for the category winner, RM1,500 for the category runner-up and RM1,000 for the second runner-up). There are a total of six classes of racing.

MSF Superbikes will go from its previous 12 laps of racing to a 33-lap endurance race. This will involve teams running two riders and two motorcycles with pitstops and changes to create a proper team-based endurance race expected to run for 90 minutes.

The overall winner will be awarded RM8,000 with RM 5,000 for the first runner-up and RM3,000 for the second runner-up.

MSF principal Adian Yein Khalid said they are grateful to have Petronas Primax on board as the main sponsor.

“It has always been somewhat of a tradition to up the game every year and that was precisely what we did with the format change in SuperTurismo and Moto Superbikes this year.