Singaporean Daim Hishammudin beats Malaysia’s Syazwan Noor to take Junior karting title
Daim Hishammudin, 14-year-old Singaporean race karter based in Malaysia, was hunting for a win all year at the 2012 Rotax Max Challenge Asia Series. Encountering one issue after another, the BHPetrol Racing driver finally secured his first race win of the season at the sixth and last round of the Series yesterday afternoon, at the same time clinching the overall Junior championship title of the Series.
Held at the Sepang Kart Circuit, his championship hopes dimmed a little when a bad judgment call was made for qualifying. The first to go out on wet tyres on a drying track, he struggled with his times and ended up qualifying at the back of the grid in 27th of the 29 drivers. He made up some when he finished 16th in Heat 1 and 7th in Heat 2 to put him 10th on the pre-final grid.
Coming into the last round 12 points behind Syazwan Noor of Malaysia, Daim left no room for Syazwan in the standings when he fought hard to win both the pre-final and the final, claiming full points (34 for the pre-final and 55 the final) and taking the top of the tables with 480 points. Finishing second to Daim overall with 461 points, Syazwan was fifth in the pre-final and last of the finishers in the final after colliding with another driver.
It hasn't been an easy season for Daim so far, with only three podium finishes of the previous five rounds. Overjoyed with finally winning a race this season, the joy doubled as the win also prompted him to take the overall Junior championship title.
"I finally won a race this season after all the mechanical issues and on-track incidents encountered throughout the year. I feel good that this victory also led to the securing of the overall championship title, but at the same time it still hasn't sunk in completely," said Daim, who also earned a spot in the Rotax Max Challenge (RMC) Grand Finals in Portugal at the end of next month. He will be the only Singaporean among the winners of all the RMC championships around the world as they gather to compete at this world finale.
Into his second year of Juniors, Daim was overall second for the Rotax Max Challenge Asia Series (Junior) last year. His aim was to win the title this year and although he eventually achieved his target, it was a tough path to the top. He finished second in Rounds 1, 4 and 5 but finished poorly in 26th in Round 2 and 12th in Round 3 after getting into unfortunate technical issues and on-track incidents.
Daim is also the first and only Singaporean on the AirAsia Caterham Driver Development Programme by the Caterham Formula 1 team that was launched in 2010.
Passionate about cars and motorsports, Cheryl Tay is a familiar face in prominent local, regional as well as international automotive titles. More of her at www.cheryl-tay.com.
