SIC MMER official vehicle handover

The handover was done at the Volkswagen showroom at the Curve by Dato Ilyas Mohamed of Cartrade Group to SIC represented by SIC Chief Strategy Officer Sharmila Nadarajah.

Sharmila says that SIC has always looked for ways to bring in sponsors that can help it (SIC) in promoting the event or the brand itself. "In this way the sponsor gets international exposure in a world standard event such as the MMER," said Sharmila.

"At the Cartrade Group, we believe sports is an important area to help build our beloved nation," said Dato’ Ilyas. "We hope and want to see a great race at Sepang on race weekend like SIC always organises. We hope that with this sponsorship we can is in someway help make it a smoother process," he added.

The handover event was in conjunction of the Team Cartrade-Abt Motorsports launch for the MMER, driven by Dato Ilyas’s sons, Helmi, Adam and Fahmi.

Driving in a Lotus 2-Eleven, the team will be managed by Proton R3 head and A1 team Malaysia engineer, Tenku Djan Ley and keeping it in the family Dato Ilyas himself will be the Team Principal.

Helmi and Adam are no strangers to the MME grid but it is the 17-year-old Fahmi who will be making his grand debut in one of Asia's most prestigious endurance races. Interestingly, his inclusion is more of an advantage for the team fully-backed by the Cartrade group.

“We know each other’s strength and weaknesses, even better than anybody else and we are going to harness that to our advantage and work as a tight team,” said Helmi at the press conference after the handover and unveiling of the race car.

Both Helmi and Adam have raced together before in 2006 with Hisham Jahudi as the third driver.

"Although at the time Fahmi was not old enough to enter the race with us, he has since came very far with his participation in Formula BMW Pacific," Helmi said.

Fahmi is currently competing in the Formula BMW Pacific, and has already had several podium finishes, with one race victory.

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Credits: JRC