Malaysia’s Viper Niza Racing Team completed its first full season of the 2025 Michelin 24H SERIES European Series with a hard-fought and drama-filled final round in Barcelona last weekend to emerge 4th overall in the point standings of the GT3-AM Class.
The all-Malaysian line-up comprising of lead driver and Team Principal Douglas Khoo, Dominic Ang, Melvin Moh, Afiq Yazid and Aaron Lim had driven their Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO to 633 laps at the season finale 24 Hours of Barcelona in Spain. The team completed the race 11th in GT3 and 22nd overall despite running as high as 7th in the opening stages.
Ang began the race for the Malaysian team and was positioned in the leading pack in 10th place before coming in for the first of the team’s scheduled refueling, pitstops and drive change at the end of 1 hour. Khoo rejoined the race in 12th position but quickly worked his way up to as high as 7th place before tragedy struck when he had a run in with one of the Porsches on the track.
“The incident happened in the second hour, and initially we thought the damage was minor and limited to just a broken upright and so we changed that and quickly continued with the race,” recalled Khoo. “Unfortunately, the steering rack was also damaged which forced Moh – who later replaced me for the third driver stint – to park the car on the track to avoid causing further damage.
“The whole exercise of bringing the car back to the pit and the replacement of the steering rack took close to three hours and in the process, we lost more than 90 laps to the race leaders. The target going to Barcelona was to fight for the GT3-AM Championship or at least a top three finish but we are equally happy to finish 4th amidst all the drama and misfortunes.”
Continental Racing by Simpson Motorsport clinched the overall GT3-AM title, with Juta Racing and Hofor Racing in 2nd and 3rd places respectively.
“Overall, the season has been a mix bag of triumphant moments and misfortunes. We missed the opening round at the 12 Hours of Mugello in March, but we finished 6th overall, 4th in the GT3 class and 2nd in the GT3 AM class at the Michelin 12 Hours of Spa Francorchamps in Belgium in April. Then in round 3 at the 12 Hours of Misano in Italy in May, we failed to score any points after a retirement caused by a cracked oil sump. At the 12 Hours of Paul Ricard in France in July, we bounced right back again with an 8th overall finish, 3rd in the GT3-AM Class and in the process bagged the Spirit of the Race award for not only the result we achieved but by virtue of doing it in a rented car after ours was damaged during qualifying.
“The bigger victory however, is being able to bring an entirely all-Malaysian team (from drivers to mechanics and race engineers) to not only race but to do so competitively and fly the Jalur Gemilang on the podium in the European Series. The experience gained this year will better prepare us for seasons to come.”
Viper Niza Racing is backed by Motul, Endless & Momentum Autoparts; IWC as its Official Watch Brand; and Jen Orchard Gateway Hotel in Singapore.
