Malaysia Speed Festival (MSF) is partnering with Proton R3, the Malaysian automaker’s motorsport division for the creation of programmes aimed at developing local talent in the field of affordable motorsports. There are two programmes put forth – The MSF-R3 Mentor Program, and the MSF-R3 Ladies Racers Search.

The first of the two is the MSF-R3 Mentor Program that is open to drivers and teams participating in the MSF Superturismo with Proton race cars; this is open to race participation in any MSF Superturismo category, for example a Saga in the Saga Cup, a Saga BLM in Street 1600, Satria Neo in 1600 Ultimate, Gen 2 in Proton 1800, Wira in Street 2000, and the like.

The MSF-R3 Mentor Program will choose five drivers or teams to be taken under the wing of Proton R3 for the remaining three rounds of MSF in 2019. This does not include any financial support, however the programme offers valuable expertise from leading professionals in the field; Proton R3 certainly has form, with four wins at the Sepang 1,000 km race in 2012, 2014, 2017 and 2018, among other victories.

The five lucky teams selected will get deeper insights into Proton R3’s approach towards motorsport, including classroom theory sessions on advanced race driving, discipline and development; a tour of the R3 facilities, with a briefing on top-level race car builds, preparation, setup and maintenance; driver training for advanced car control skills; karting sessions to train for wheel-to-wheel racing scenarios; and a space in the Proton R3 pit garage at MSF Superturismo for the remaining three rounds, including race support by Proton R3 technicians.

Taking place alongside the R3 mentor programme is the MSF-R3 Ladies Racers Search 2019. For this programme, participants do not necessarily need to be racing Proton cars in the MSF series, though they must be female racers currently participating in MSF – sorry, lads. Participants of the Ladies Racers Search will be chosen from an initial social media contest to undergo a selection and training process.

Drawing from the MSF-R3 Mentor Program, the selection process for the ladies will include classroom theory sessions on advanced race driving, discipline and development; a tour of the R3 facilities with a briefing on top-flight race car builds, preparation, setup and maintenance; driver training for advanced car control skills; karting sessions to train for wheel-to-wheel dogfights, and in addition to the above, test sessions the Proton R3 race cars at the Sepang International Circuit.

From this process, the programme aims to find three of the best lady racers in Malaysia and put them in participation of the Sepang 1,000 km race with the Proton R3 team, at the wheel of the factory-prepared Proton R3 Iriz race car.

You now know what it is; here’s how to enter. Record a video, take a photo or create a post on Facebook and/or Instagram explaining why you should be chosen to be part of this valuable development programme. There is no limit on the number or frequency of posts that may be published on said social media platforms, though all posts, photos and videos must be accompanied by the following identifying hashtags:

Ladies Racers Search: #msfR3ladyracers2019
Mentor Program: #msfR3mentor2019
Additional: #protonr3 #msfracing #msfsuperturismo #msfmerdekarace

To ensure visibility, privacy settings for all related posts must be set to Public. The social media contest will run from now until August 13, 2019; all posts must be uploaded before 10:00pm on August 13.

-paultan