Inside Malaysia’s motorsport ecosystem

ON paper, Malaysia has one of Southeast Asia’s most advanced motorsport facilities.

In practice, industry players say the ecosystem beneath it remains fragile, constrained by limited access, rising costs and a shortage of structured pathways between amateur participation and professional racing.

At the heart of the debate is track time.

Former Formula One (F1) driver Alex Yoong says Malaysia’s four-wheel motorsport ecosystem cannot grow meaningfully without more regular and predictable access to circuits, arguing that frequency, rather than infrastructure alone, determines whether talent, teams and supporting businesses can take root.

“For local motorsport, we get about two days a month at Sepang.

“That is not enough to build teams, drivers, mechanics or a business,” he tells Bernama.

While acknowledging Sepang International Circuit (SIC)’s commercial pressures, Yoong says usage intensity matters more than facility quality.

“I got zero complaints about the infrastructure, but you cannot grow an industry on two days a month.

“Ideally, it needs to be five or six days,” he adds.

Professional race driver Tengku Djan Ley Tengku Mahaleel echoes these concerns, pointing to a structural bottleneck created by Malaysia’s reliance on a single main circuit for four-wheel motorsport.

“Right now, we are down to one main circuit.

“If we want to develop motorsport seriously, facilities need to expand. Not everything should be concentrated in one place.”

Both Yoong and Tengku Djan have stressed that while track-day participation has increased, the middle layer of the ecosystem remains underdeveloped.

This is the stage where drivers transition into structured competition, teams stabilise operations, and costs begin to normalise.

Track days, according to them, have thrived as a recreational activity, but progression beyond that level remains uneven.

Former SIC chief executive officer Datuk Razlan Razali says this imbalance has existed for years – it was already evident before the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Local teams usually cannot afford to rent the track on their own. They depend on track-day organisers.

“That has always been the reality.”

This dependence, adds Razlan, leaves local motorsport vulnerable to calendar constraints, pricing changes and competition from higher-paying commercial bookings, which limit opportunities for teams to plan consistently.

Current SIC chief executive officer Azhan Shafriman Hanif says track utilisation has risen sharply since the pandemic, with demand pushing usage levels above 80 per cent last year.

While higher utilisation reflects strong interest, industry players have said that it has also intensified competition for limited calendar space, further constraining access for development-focused activity.

Consistent pathway to shape talents

Tan Sri Mokhzani Mahathir, president of the Motorsports Association of Malaysia (MAM), says Malaysia has yet to establish a consistent pathway that allows talents to progress from grassroots participation to international competition.

“It’s how you develop the ladder from the beginning, from grassroots all the way to world championship.

“Australia and Japan have systems that work. We have not found that yet,” he points out.

Without such a structure, industry players say drivers, teams and technical personnel often operate in isolation, relying on sporadic overseas exposure rather than sustained domestic competition.

Yoong cautions against equating strong track-day demand with a healthy motorsport industry, noting that four-wheel racing in Malaysia remains heavily dependent on SIC.

“The two-wheel scene survives because it does not rely on one venue.

“For four wheels, everything funnels back to Sepang,” says Yoong.

At the team level, the impact of limited access is more immediate.

Douglas Khoo, founder and team owner of endurance racing outfit Viper Niza Racing, says regular access to track days is critical for preparation and competitiveness.

“Very critical. Whenever there’s a track day, and it does not clash with my schedule, we will definitely take the car out for testing.”

Khoo says motorsport training differs fundamentally from most other sports, as meaningful preparation depends entirely on circuit availability.

“I guess motorsports is not like football, where you can put a cone and practise anywhere. We rely on having a track to be available,” he says, adding that Malaysian teams are fortunate to have access to SIC if compared with the neighbouring markets.

Limited access, rising costs

While acknowledging SIC’s commercial constraints, Khoo says recent reductions in session length have affected value for teams.

“Previously, the time allocation was 55 minutes per category.

“Now it’s gone down to 45 minutes for the same amount of money.

“Ten minutes is a lot. You can do four or five more laps,” he says.

Yoong warns that limited access and rising costs risk pushing teams and drivers to train overseas, weakening domestic value creation.

“When track time is limited, teams are forced to train overseas.

“That means workshops here lose business, mechanics lose jobs, and the ecosystem weakens.”

Tengku Djan describes motorsport not merely as a sport, but as a commercial ecosystem involving engineering, logistics, finance and management.

“If you do not create platforms locally, you do not get longevity.”

Razlan says while motorsport is inherently expensive, cost alone is not the core issue.

“What matters is structure,” he says, adding that responsibility for mapping and coordinating the ecosystem now sits with MAM.

According to Razlan, a national motorsport blueprint currently being finalised is expected to quantify the value chain, identify gaps and provide a clearer basis for policy decisions.

Without such coordination, industry players warned that Malaysia risks remaining stuck in a cycle where participation grows but progression stalls.

With track-day demand rising, access increasingly constrained, and development pathways still fragmented, Malaysia’s four-wheel motorsport ecosystem faces a critical test of whether frequency, structure and coordination can keep pace with interest. — Bernama

* The final part of this series will explore policy questions, including infrastructure expansion, development pathways and the trade-offs between prestige events and long-term ecosystem building.