Kuala Lumpur City Grand Prix

The Kuala Lumpur City Grand Prix (also known as the KL City Grand Prix) is a motor racing event held on the Kuala Lumpur Street Circuit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. First held in 2015, the 2016 event will be held from 12–14 August.

Circuit

The 3.2 kilometre, 16 corner street circuit is based in the centre of Kuala Lumpur and passes several major landmarks including the Petronas Towers.[1]

History

The inaugural event was held from 7–9 August 2015. The event's main race, the KL GT City Cup was supported by championship rounds of the Lamborghini Super Trofeo Asia and Formula Masters China series, and an exhibition of five selected cars from the International V8 Supercars Championship from Australia.[2]

KL GT City Cup

The KL GT City Cup, a race for GT3 cars, is run as a forty-minute race on the Sunday of the event. The 2015 GT City Cup was won by Japanese driver Naoki Yokomizo.[3] Local Malaysian driver Fairuz Fauzy finished second, but only after having been forced to borrow a car from the Lamborghini Super Trofeo series for the race, having badly damaged his Lamborghini Gallardo GT3 in qualifying.[3]

Winners

Year Driver Car
2015 Japan Naoki Yokomizo Lamborghini Huracán LP 620-2 Super Trofeo

V8 Supercars

Prior to the first running of the event in 2015, V8 Supercars announced they intended to hold a full championship round at the KL City Grand Prix from 2016 onwards.[1] They also ran a demonstration event at the 2015 event, with only five cars featuring in an exhibition, one representing each of the five marques in the championship. It featured qualifying and then three short races, with the overall winner being Chaz Mostert for Prodrive Racing Australia.[4]

Following a positive response to the demonstration, the 2016 championship round was confirmed in September 2015 with the announcement of the calendar for the 2016 season.[5] Kuala Lumpur will become the series' only event outside Australia and New Zealand in 2016, and the fourth event in the series' history in Asia; following an event at the Shanghai International Circuit in China in 2005, the Desert 400 in Bahrain from 2006 to 2010 and the Yas V8 400 in the United Arab Emirates from 2010 to 2012.

The championship round will be known as the KL City 400 and follow the International Super Sprint format, which consists of four 100 km races across the weekend. The South East Asia Formula 4 will be supporting the event.

References

  1. 1 2 "V8 Supercars announce four-year agreement with Kuala Lumpur City Grand Prix". Confederation of Australian Motor Sport. 3 June 2015. Retrieved 8 September 2015.
  2. ↑ Haqqin, Zie (3 August 2015). "KL City Grand Prix is All Ready to Go". GTCityGrandPrix.com (Kuala Lumpur). Retrieved 9 September 2015.
  3. 1 2 Ishak, Fadhli (9 August 2015). "Naoki Yokomizo wins KL City GT Cup". New Straits Times (Kuala Lumpur). Retrieved 8 September 2015.
  4. ↑ Bartholomaeus, Stefan (9 August 2015). "Todd Kelly wins final V8 Supercars demo in KL". SpeedCafe. Retrieved 8 September 2013.
  5. ↑ "2016 Championship calendar released". V8 Supercars. 8 September 2015. Retrieved 8 September 2015.

External links

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