PETRONAS Talent Development rider, Hafizh Syahrin hopes to make amends for a disastrous outing at Jerez as the team head to the historic Le Mans for the French Grand Prix this weekend. Following three encouraging flyaway races, Hafizh was eager to keep the momentum rolling for the first European leg in Spain two weeks ago but found himself plagued with technical issues throughout the weekend instead. In the end he managed to salvage five points after finishing 11th place in an intense Moto2 battle that saw many frontrunners crash out.
Putting the past behind him, the PETRONAS Raceline Malaysia rider hopes the stop-and-go layout of Le Mans will work in his favour seeing that the team has extensive data on the 4.2 kilometre circuit. He is further boosted by good memories finishing last year’s race in ninth place. The Malaysian is currently ranked eighth overall with 28 points in the Moto2 World Championship standings while Sam Lowes heads the title chase with 72 points.
Hafizh Syahrin, PETRONAS Raceline Malaysia Moto2 rider
Le Mans Circuit is not too bad for me and the technical layout is expected to even out the field. We are already looking at last year’s data and found that the rear shock is more consistent compared to the previous unit and this will definitely improve rear grip this weekend. Let’s see how the first session turns out and that will determine our direction for the weekend.
Barry Leong, PETRONAS Raceline Malaysia team manager
Le Mans Circuit is quite tricky as it requires an overall well-balanced setup. But we started using WP suspensions here last year so hopefully that will help get things up to speed as we have relevant data to refer to. Jerez was a weekend to forget and the focus now is to do better from Le Mans onwards. The frontrunners will be fast here for sure but we are hopeful of closing the gap and sticking with them.
Malaysian Riders 