Track Days, Talent And The Missing Middle: Inside Malaysia’s Motorsport Ecosystem

(Note: This is part two of a three-part series examining Malaysia’s motorsport ecosystem. This part focuses on structural challenges, including limited track access, rising costs and gaps in talent development.

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 18 (Bernama) -- 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 driver Alex Yoong said 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 told Bernama.

While acknowledging Sepang International Circuit’s (SIC) commercial pressures, Yoong said 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 added.

Professional race driver Tengku Djan Ley Tengku Mahaleel echoed 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,” he said.

Both Yoong and Tengku Djan 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, they said, have thrived as a recreational activity, but progression beyond that level remains uneven.

Former SIC chief executive officer Razlan Razali said this imbalance has existed for years and 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,” he said.

This dependence, Razlan added, 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 said track utilisation has risen sharply since the pandemic, with demand pushing usage levels above 80 per cent in 2025.
While higher utilisation reflects strong interest, industry players said it has also intensified competition for limited calendar space, further constraining access for development-focused activity.

Consistent Pathway to Shape Talent

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

“It’s how you develop the ladder from the beginning, from the grassroots all the way to the world championship. Australia and Japan have systems that work. We have not found that yet,” he said.

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

Yoong cautioned 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 survived because it does not rely on one venue. For four wheels, everything funnels back to Sepang,” he said.

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, said 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,” he said.

Khoo said 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 said, adding that Malaysian teams are fortunate to have access to SIC compared with neighbouring markets.

Limited Access and Rising Costs

While acknowledging SIC’s commercial constraints, Khoo said 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 said.

Yoong warned 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,” he said.

Tengku Djan described 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,” he said.

Razlan said while motorsport is inherently expensive, cost alone is not the core issue.
“What matters is structure,” he said, 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