Jazeman Jaafar – Photo Credit: Wikimedia

From 11th position on the starting grid, 28-year-old racer, Jazeman Jaafar performed excellently to register his first podium finish at the “4 Hours of Monza” at the Monza Circuit in Italy.

Jaafar and his Indonesian partner, Sean Galael, represented Jota Racing. The duo completed 125 rounds in four hours, one minute and 31.344 seconds in third place at the European Le Mans Series (ELMS).

The two South-east Asian racers were 34.420s behind champions Julien Canal, William Stevens and James Allen from Panis Racing who recorded 4:00:56.924s. Meanwhile, the United Autosports team consisting of Philip Hanson, Jonathan Aberdein and Tom Gamble finished second in 4:01:02.055s.

Jazeman, a former Formula Three racer, said that after a long rest following the Covid-19 pandemic, he was happy to represent Malaysia as an Asian team at ELMS.

“Thank God, I feel so proud that we managed to get a podium position from 11th place. We started with many calculations and training because the competition at ELMS was very stiff, comprising mostly former F1 racers. There was also a test driver for F1. But we made the best strategy, the best pit stops and worked as a team to get a result like this,” he said in a video.

Jaafar also thanked Malaysians for their support which helped him realise his target of a podium finish.