The Sepang 12 Hours (formerly known as the Malaysia Merdeka Endurance Race and Merdeka Millennium Endurance Race), was a 12 Hours endurance racing event held annually between 2000 and 2016 at the Sepang International Circuit on December in Malaysia.

Sepang 12 Hours
VenueSepang International Circuit
First race2000
Duration12 Hours
Most wins (manufacturer)Porsche (5)

It was organised by the Stephane Ratel Organisation, responsible for global GT3 standards in international sportscar racing.

The race was part of the inaugural Intercontinental GT Challenge in 2016.

Schedule

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Historically part of the Merdeka holiday, the race was moved to December by Ratel to make the race as the first of four major endurance races held in the Northern Hemisphere winter, the traditional off-season of motorsport, with the others the Dubai 24 Hour (Creventic 24H Series) and the Rolex 24 at Daytona (IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in January, and the Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour in February are the others.

History

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1990–2000

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In the late 1990s, Malaysian auto manufacturer Proton used to organize a 300 km race at Shah Alam circuit for local racers racing with Protons, to celebrate Merdeka in Malaysia. When Sepang International Circuit was built the race was shifted to the F1 circuit, with the winners of the race entitled to a new Proton road car.

But after the 1999 race, a dispute happened between Proton and Sepang International Circuit, resulting in Proton's sponsorship withdrawal. Sepang therefore decided to host a replacement race by itself and started the Merdeka Millennium 12 Hours Endurance Race in 2000. The race also opened up for non-Proton entries.

The inaugural race was won by the Proton EON Racing Team (PERT) with Jimmy Low, Karamjit Singh and Tommy Lee driving, beating off the challenge from TVR Racing who ran Malaysian F1 driver Alex Yoong.

2001–2017

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2006 Merdeka Millennium Endurance Race logo

In 2001, TVR Racing won the race with Jeffery Wong, Tommy Lee and Admi Shahrul in a TVR Chimaera.

In 2002, Amprex Motorsport entered the Japan GT300 spec Mazda RX-7 machine, with crack Hong Kong driver Charles Kwan and Kevin Wong as its drivers. But the car failed to finish the race. Nigel Albon, Tommy Lee and T. Hamman won in their Porsche 911 GT3.

In 2003, the race got more serious with BSA Racing entering a Radical SR3 and a Porsche 911 GT3 Cup with Wolf Henzler as its lead driver, while Amprex Motorsport entered the BMW M3 GT for Charles Kwan, Matthew Marsh and Genji Hashimoto. Alex Yoong was also back with Jaseri Racing. But in the end unfancied G1-Meritus won the race after outlasting its rivals, with Eric Yeo, Firhat Mohkzani and Chin Tzer-Jinn driving their Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car serenely to victory after completing 268 laps.[1]

In 2004, Amprex Motorsport, armed with the latest ACO/FIA GT1 spec Lamborghini Murcielago R-GT racer, totally dominated proceedings as its drivers set laps of 2:09s around the circuit. But the car broke down and Honda Malaysia Racing Team, with Eddie Lew, Farriz Fauzy and Super GT driver Hiroki Katoh, took the top step of the podium, despite running in class A.

The 2005 edition was dominated by a joint effort between Amprex Motorsport and Proton R3 Racing, together they operated the team and their Lotus Exige 300RR won outright, completing 279 laps.

In 2006, Amprex Motorsport decided to bring back the Lamborghini Murcielago R-GT for the race but it was crippled in a practice accident, allowing Proton R3 Racing's Lotus Exige 300RR a clear run to victory number 2, completing 271 laps in the process. Faidzil Alang, Australian Damien French and Tengku Djan Ley shared the driving duties.

The 2007 race has been made more interesting with more participation from foreign teams racing teams, namely J's Racing Lab with a Honda S2000 and Juniper Racing with a 911 GT3 RSR. Famous racing drivers such as former F1 and 24 Hours of Le Mans driver Hans-Joachim Stuck also participated in the race. Year 2007 also record the highest participation so far with 103 cars signing up for the race but only 77 makes it to the starting grid in accordance to the FIA circuit license granted to Sepang International Circuit.

In 2008, the race was won by Darryl O'Young, Mok Wing Sun and Alexander Nicholas Davison of Porsche Club Singapore. Their Porsche 997 RSR completed 308 laps.[2]

The race was renamed the Sepang 12 Hours in 2014, and in 2015 was run under the organisation of international sportscar racing authority the Stephane Ratel Organisation.[3]

The race in 2017 was cancelled due to a lack of entries, and has not been held since.[4]

2018–2022

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After a break of 5 years, in 2022 it was announced race was returning for 2023 - the revival of the race is going to be organized by a partnership between Top Speed and Sepang International Circuit.[5]

Overall winners

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Year Team Drivers Car Laps
2000   Proton EON Racing Team   Jimmy Low
  Karamjit Singh
  Tommy Lee
Proton PERT 253
2001   Team TVR   Jeffrey Wong
  Admi Sharhal
  Tommy Lee
TVR Chimaera 250
2002   Jaseri Racing   Nigel Albon
  Tunku Hammam
  Tommy Lee
Porsche 911 GT3 Cup 262
2003   G1 Meritus   Eric Yeo
  Chin Tzer-Jinn
  Firhat Mohkzani
Porsche 911 GT3 Cup 268
2004   Honda Malaysia Racing Team   Eddie Lew
  Hiroki Katoh
  Farriz Fauzy
Honda Civic 2.0 i-VTEC 265
2005   Proton R3 Amprex   Tengku Djan Ley
  Genji Hashimoto
  Tony Ricciardello
Lotus Exige 300RR 279
2006   Proton R3 Team   Tengku Djan Ley
  Damien French
  Faidzil Alang
Lotus Exige 300RR 271
2007   Team Hong Leong-Kencana Racing   Mokhzani Mahathir
  Sven Herberger
  Lars Erik Nielsen
Porsche 911 GT3 RSR 288
2008   Team Porsche Club Singapore   Alex Davison
  Darryl O'Young
  Weng Sun Mok
Porsche 997 RSR 308
2009   Petronas Syntium Team   Johan Adzmi
  Tatsuya Kataoka
  Manabu Orido
BMW Z4M Coupe 306
2010   Arrows Racing   Christopher Haase
  Tunku Hammam
  Peter Kox
Lamborghini LP560 315
2011   Petronas Syntium Team   Dominic Ang
  Nobuteru Taniguchi
  Masataka Yanagida
Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 321
2012   Petronas Syntium Team   Dominic Ang
  Nobuteru Taniguchi
  Masataka Yanagida
Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 319
2013   Clearwater Racing   Craig Baird
  Hiroshi Hamaguchi
  Weng Sun Mok
Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 323
2014   Clearwater Racing   Gianmaria Bruni
  Alif Hamdan
  Weng Sun Mok
Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 325
2015   Belgian Audi Club Team WRT   Stuart Leonard
  Stéphane Ortelli
  Laurens Vanthoor
Audi R8 LMS 228
2016   Audi Sport Team Phoenix   Robin Frijns
  Christopher Haase
  Laurens Vanthoor
Audi R8 LMS 305
2017 Race Cancelled [6]
2018

2022
Not held
2023   Absolute Racing   Andrew Haryanto
  Markus Winkelhock
  James Yu
Audi R8 LMS Evo II 215
2024   R&B Racing   Wei Lu
  Leo Ye Hongli
  Bo Yuan
Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) 322

Multiple race winners

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Wins Driver
3   Tommy Lee
  Weng Sun Mok
2   Tengku Djan Ley
  Tunku Hammam Sulong
  Nobuteru Taniguchi
  Masataka Yanagida
  Dominic Ang
  Christopher Haase
  Laurens Vanthoor
Wins Manufacturer
5 Porsche
3 Audi
2 Lotus
Ferrari
Mercedes-Benz

Records

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  • Tommy Lee is the only driver to have won the Open class three times. He raced for three different teams for the wins: PERT, TVR and Jaseri Racing.
  • The Honda Malaysia Racing Team (HMRT) has won class A five times in a row from 2003 to 2007,[7] it also won the race overall in 2004.
  • Malaysian driver Jazeman Jaafar became the youngest participant of MMER in 2007, at the age of 14.
  • Team Porsche Club Singapore became the first foreign team to win the Merdeka Millennium Endurance in 2008.[2]

References

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  1. ^ "BSA racing debut at MME". radicalextremesportscars.com. 30 August 2003. Archived from the original on 6 December 2007. Retrieved 30 July 2008.
  2. ^ a b "Porsche Club Singapore Wins Merdeka Millennium Endurance Race". Sepang International Circuit. Archived from the original on 18 February 2012. Retrieved 18 January 2016.
  3. ^ "Sepang 12 Hours Race 2015". Sepang International Circuit. Archived from the original on 3 February 2016. Retrieved 26 January 2016.
  4. ^ Sports, N. S. T. (2017-11-04). "End of the road for Sepang 12 Hours race". NST Online. Retrieved 2020-02-26.
  5. ^ "Sepang 12 Hours Set To Return In 2023". dailysportscar.com.
  6. ^ "SRO chooses to cancel 2017 Motul Sepang 12 Hours". 3 November 2017.
  7. ^ "Rising to "The Challenge Within" won Class A Championship title for the 5th consecutive year in MME". Honda Malaysia. Retrieved 18 January 2016.