Cartrade-ABT Motorsports Lead Lotus Challenge

25 August 2008, By Sepang International Circuits

THE LOTUS CHALLENGE

A massive total of eight Lotus machines will be going into battle at the 2008 Petronas Primax 3 Merdeka Millennium Endurance race, and they – all grouped in Class A - are all ready to make an impact at the 12-hour endurance as they usually do in the past races.

“Yes, we are having the biggest number of Lotus entries for this year’s race, and yes, they are all looking forward for the race and ready to put up a good show,” says Oh Kah Beng of Lotus Car Asia, which would be providing the technical support to the Lotus entries.

“Lotus has always been a strong supporter of the MME and we are happy to be part of this great event again this year. We have been doing well over the years and we aim to do well again this year,” he added.

The benchmark of Lotus success at the MME had always been high especially with the two successive victories by Proton R3 in 2005 and 2006 in their open class Lotus Exige 300RR car. So far, Proton R3 is the only team that had successfully defended their overall title at the 12-hour race.

Leading the Lotus challenge for the 2008 Petronas Primax 3 Merdeka Millennium Endurance race would be the Cartrade-ABT Motorsports, which had declared a target of winning an overall top placing and a Class A win for the August 30 race.

“Our primary objective in participating in the MME race is to motivate our technical staff as well as to improve their daily operations efficiency We’re optimistic in realizing an overall top placing for our team with the latest entry-level Lotus 2-eleven vehicle. This year, we have an ace – the Lotus 2-11, a superb race car,” said Datuk Ilyas Mohamed, the Team Principal of Cartrade-Motorsports Team.

Speaking at the official launch of the team at Abt Bangsar in Kuala Lumpur on August 21, Ilyas said the MME race was a good platform to brand-build Cartrade-ABT as the company had the technical expertise, maintenance capacities and equipment to support the maturing motorsports industry.

In support of motorsports development, Cartrade-ABT is also one of the official sponsors of the MME race; providing the cars required in the management of the race including the Safety Car as the Medical Cars.

The 2008 would mark the first entry in the MME for Cartrade-ABT Motorsports, which in the previous two years competed as Cartrade Motorsports. The team was placed was placed 29th overall in 2006 and improved to seventh overall last year.

The Cartrade-ABT Motorsports features Helmi Ilyas, 27, Director of Sales Cartrade-ABT; Adam Ilyas, 24, the Sales Manager of Cartrade-ABT and motoring journalist Hisham Jahudi as its drivers. While Adam is top cart racer, Helmi has the widest MME experience with a fifth placing in Class A as his best result.

Helmi and the team, however, are confident of bettering that achievement this year as they would be driving a powerful Lotus 2-eleven machine. Weighing 750kg with high revving 255PS, the car has the capacity to sprint from zero to 60mph in 3.9 seconds. The car was tuned and set up by the Cartrade-ABT team; assisted by ABT Sportsline Germany with a better gear ratio, chassis tuning, clutch and extractor for durability.

While Oh shares the enthusiasm of the Cartrade-ABT Motorsports Team, he was equally confident of the other Lotus entries performing as outstanding, with their race experience and the reliability of the Lotus cars.