PanGlobal Insurance Bhd. kicked off the first round of the 10-round PANGLOBAL ALEX YOONG F1 DRIVER SEARCH programme yesterday at the FastTrack SpeedZone Elite go-kart circuit near Kuala Lumpur.
Twenty Five entries took part in round 1 where the fastest five would qualify for the Grand Final which will be held in December 2004. The Nine fastest out of these twenty five who competed in round 1 were to run the Qualifier 1 final today but the skies opened up before the round 1 final could be run and the final had to be postponed to next month in April.
Md. Faizal bin Yusof, 25, was the fastest of the 9 qualifiers for the round 1 final. The Perak born marketing executive clocked a very impressive time of 1m 00.402s Faizal was closely followed by Shahriman Onn who is a 26 year old manager from Shah Alam with a time of 1m 00.647s.
Third fastest qualifier was Md. Tarmizi who at 16 is amongst the youngest competitors entered for round 1. Tarmizi who is still a student and living in Subang Jaya clocked 1m 00.894s to grab the third fastest time of the day.
The other 6 qualifiers for the round 1 final are Sharulashraf Ishar, Lim Shuey Wen, Khairul Izwan, Md Shariff Che Ismail, Hisham Jahudi and Bernard Yap.
Alex Yoong conducted a workshop session prior to the start of the qualifying races. He commented on the competitors at the end of the three qualifying races, "We have alot of talents here today. The times done have been close and I wouldn't be surprised to see some very tough competition throughout the nine rounds before the Grand Final. The Grand Final should be a very close fought affair."
The Grand Finalists will vie for the coveted prizes of Formula BMW test drives as well as being sent to a racing school overseas.
PanGlobal Insurance Bhd.'s Chief Executive Officer, Edwin Wong was pleased with the great interest generated by the F1 Driver Search programme and he feels certain that by year-end some very good talents with great potential will be unearthed. Five fastest finalists from each of the 9 rounds before the Grand Final (rd 10) will be selected to participate in the Grand Final where all qualified competitors start all over again to try to win the coveted Formula BMW test drive prizes.
There are still plenty of time to make the entries and for more details of the coming qualifier rounds competitors should contact Tengku Muneer at 03-20782090 or email at tengkumuneer@pgi.com.my or visit the PanGlobal panglobal.com.my .
