Friday 26 / April / 2024
Sepang: Oman's Khalid Al Wahaibi drove on the exciting Sepang International Circuit for the first time during a test session ahead of the Formula 4 South East Asia Championship (FIA certified) on Wednesday.
The full day test session was designed to help the young drivers like Khalid Al Wahaibi to familiarise themselves and acclimatise to the 5.54km long Sepang circuit.
The highly technical circuit features 15 corners with a mix of sweeping, fast and tight corners in addition to its trademark two long straights.
Amongst the drivers who took part in the collective test session were local hopefuls, Isyraf Danish, Eric Louis and Adam Khalid.
Whilst the majority of the field were already familiar with the Sepang track, this was the first time for Oman’s Khalid Al Wahaibi as well as for debutant David Tatinclaux of France
After finishing the test drive, Oman's Khalid Al Wahaibi said he simply loved the circuit.
"Compared to Sentul (Indonesia) and Clark (Philippines), I really liked the Sepang Circuit. It has a lot of fast, flowing corners, where it flows from one corner to the next," said Khalid Al Wahaibi.
"Every corner almost has a straight after and you need to maintain a good pace on the exits, otherwise you can lose a lot of time. I really like the characteristics of the track and my favourite corners were the sweeping, flat-out Turns 5 and 6,” he added.
The F4/SEA Event 4 race proceedings will commence on Thursday with practice and qualifying, followed by the first race of six scheduled for the weekend. Four of the races will be contested on Friday with the remaining race scheduled for Saturday.
Another Star Driver award trophy will again be up for grabs for the most successful driver from the weekend, as the young drivers will again be vying to out-score their compatriots over the course of the six scheduled races that will be contested over the weekend.
With the overall event champion scored on a reverse to the F4/SEA championship points, drivers aim to score the lowest points to be in the running for the coveted trophy on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the top 10 drivers earn FIA F4 championship points, which are aligned to follow the F1 points scoring system with the top seven championship drivers eligible to also earn valuable FIA Super License points at the end of the season.
The FIA single-operated F4/SEA championship — certified by FIA is one of 12 worldwide championships in the FIA’s F4 global format. F4/SEA is uniquely designed to help harness and develop Asia’s young motorsports talent through a cost-effective programme.
The F4/SEA is the first step on the FIA’s streamlined ladder to developing professional careers in the sport.
