After successful runs at Snetterton and Brands Hatch, Team Petronas Syntium Proton and new recruit Fariqe Hairuman moved on to Donington Park and Silverstone last week, giving the Malaysian driver a chance to sample two more of the circuits which he will be faced with during his debut BTCC season next year.

Long-term mentor and coach to Fariqe is experienced South African Richard Lester – himself a former saloon car champion. “It’s all going very well”, he said. “We had a good couple of days at Silverstone and Donington and we’re making some good progress. I think Fariqe’s feeling more comfortable in the car which means we can start to push on.”

First up for Fariqe last week was Donington, which will host the final meeting of the 2004 championship in late September next year. “It is quite a fast track and very nice to drive”, commented Fariqe. This was followed in quick succession by a visit to Silverstone: “The circuit we ran at Silverstone was quite similar to back home as it was very short.”

Richard added: “At Silverstone, we just ran on the short circuit which isn’t really much help for next year, for either the GP support round or the normal meeting. It was useful to get Fariqe on the track though. Fortunately it was dry at both tracks, with just a brief shower at Silverstone.”

“We’ve got very little scope for problems in these sessions, and we really have to make sure we look after the car and the engine. We’re working mainly on getting Fariqe familiar with the circuits, and looking at corner entry and mid-corner positioning.”

Running in circuit general test days, as Team PSP are currently doing, brings further obstacles which can be difficult to overcome: “One of the biggest problems we’re having is that you can get every man and his dog running at these test days”, said Richard. “At Donington, they ran all the cars together, so there was us, F3 cars, Formula Renaults, Radicals – everything running on the track at the same time. It was making traffic a nightmare and was extremely frustrating.”

Despite the difficulties, both Fariqe and Richard feel that significant progress is being made each time the team goes out on track, as Fariqe explains: “I had a very good run at both tracks last week. I’m feeling much more comfortable with the car now – I’m getting used to the handling and the sequential gears. I think we’re getting there. All the time that I’m in the car, everything is getting easier, which is very good.”

Having worked with Fariqe throughout his racing career, no-one is in a better position to judge the progress being made by the young Malaysian: “Fariqe has not put a foot wrong yet. After we’ve finished at Croft, we are going back to Snetterton later in the week – that will be very interesting because it’s the only track we’ll have been to twice, so we should get to see how much progress we’ve made. There are no other drivers to be evaluated at this stage, so it will just be Fariqe in these next sessions so we should really be able to get some good work done.”

“The plan is to come back and go around the circuits in the new car next year, and hopefully by that stage we will have had a shake-down in Malaysia to iron out any problems so Fariqe will then be able to have some really useful running on the circuits.”