Hafizh Syahrin


Hafizh Syahrin Abdullah is a Malaysian motorcycle racer. In 2018, he became the first ever Southeast Asian to participate in the MotoGP category.

Career

Early career

Hafizh was born on 5 May 1994 in Selangor, Malaysia, and grew up in Selangor. He began his career at the age of 9, in pocket bikes; he eventually acquired the nickname "King of Pocket Bikes", when he was discovered by team manager Barry Leong purely by chance. It was not long before his talent began to show after his racing debut on pocket bikes the following year. Dominating the pocket bike category soon after, he was discovered by Leong at one of the pocket bike tracks.
In 2007, at the age of 13, Hafizh made his debut in the Cub Prix championship in dominating style finishing his first year on the Yamaha LC135 Cup class second overall.
His form continued the following year as the Petronas Sprinta Raceline team's then youngest rider finished on the podium taking 3rd overall in the Yamaha Givi Cup in 2008, in the process also making waves through his spot entries in the Novice category with impressive results.
Hafizh started the 2009 season on a high winning the opening race of the season at Alor Setar with a win in the Novice category. With 7 wins out of 8 rounds, with the other being a podium finish, his dominance in the category was unrivalled that he opted to forego the final two rounds. The youngster switched to race against his more illustrious and seasoned seniors in the Expert category with podium results. He finished third in the Asia Road Racing Underbone 115cc Championship.
Graduating to take on the expert category in 2010, the switch was seamless as Hafizh literally broke down all the barriers and tore the competition apart. Despite a massive revamp in the technical regulations that led to the renaming of the expert category to become the CP130 category; these changes did little to rattle Syahrin's cage.
By the time the season drew to a close in Penang's Padang Kota Lama, the 16-year-old had obliterated the competition to emerge as the championship's youngest ever CP130 champion, erasing the record set by Norizman Ismail who was the Expert champion in 2005 at the age of 20.
2010 was also significant as the 16-year-old made the step up to the bigger league, the Petronas Asia Road Racing Championship aboard a 600cc SuperSport bike. Against a much older and experienced field, the youngster held his own to finish his debut season in a respectable 12th from 39 riders. He finished fourth in the same series in 2011. He moved into the Spanish Moto2 series in 2012, finishing sixth.

Moto2 World Championship

In 2012, wild-card Hafizh led during the middle stages of Malaysian Grand Prix on his way to fourth place. The result was later promoted to a third-place finish, after Anthony West's results were expunged in November 2013. In, Hafizh made several more wildcard appearances. He scored a point at his home race in Malaysia.
Hafizh moved into Moto2 full-time in 2014 riding a Kalex for the Petronas Raceline Malaysia team and finished overall in position 19 with 42 points. He made further improvement in 2015 by collecting 64 points with a season best finish of 5th at the Japanese Grand Prix. In 2016, Hafizh surprised other riders and impressed commentators by finishing 4th at 3 Grands Prix and finishing 10 of the Grands Prix in the top 10. He collected 118 points along season 2016 overall in 9th position.
In 2017, he made a slow start to the season with an average performance before making an impact when he took a podium in 3rd position, then later up to 2nd position because of Aegerter's disqualification for his win at the San Marino Grand Prix. Later, he had another stunning result by taking 3rd podium on his career when he get 3rd position in a wet race at the Japanese Grand Prix. He ended that season in the top 10 with 106 points overall.
Sadly, after the years since he debuted in Malaysian Cup Prix with Raceline and main sponsor Petronas, he parted ways with Raceline and then announced that he joined a new outfit, the Sepang International Circuits Moto2 team, which collaborated with Petronas as main sponsor. However, Petronas later announced they would quit as main sponsor of the Moto2 SIC outfit and was looking forward more to the talent development on SIC's feeder team in Moto3. Hafizh rode as SIC Moto2's sole rider.

MotoGP World Championship

Just a week before the 2018 MotoGP Sepang pre-season test, Jonas Folger made a surprising announcement by stating that he would not compete in the 2018 season to recover from a health problem. Then, the head of the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 team, Herve Poncharal had a discussion with SIC CEO, Dato' Razlan, and their main sponsor Yamaha Asia, about the possibility of replacing Folger with Syahrin.
He had the opportunity to take part in the early pre-season test at the Circuit of Buriram. This was also boosted by the inability of other riders on the list who have contract with other teams, including Yonny Hernandez. Syahrin, nicknamed "El Pescao", made an impressive performance on his 1st ever run on a MotoGP bike by clocking a lap time as good as the other rookies who have been on the circuit longer than him.
Monster Yamaha Tech 3 was delighted about his potential and signed Hafizh to fill Jonas Folger's seat for the 2018 season.

2018

Hafizh did well in his first MotoGP season when he fought for Rookie of the Year before losing out to Franco Morbidelli.
His best result came in the second round at Argentina when he finished 9th after starting from 23rd.
On 6 June 2018, Tech 3 announced that they would retain Syahrin for 2019, in a new era for Hervé Poncharal's team that will see him make the switch to a factory spec KTM machine.

2019

Syahrin would again ride for Tech 3, this time riding a KTM alongside new rookie teammate Miguel Oliveira. After nine races, the team announced they would not renew his contract and will replace him with Brad Binder for the 2020 season. Binder later moved up to the Factory KTM Team for 2020, following Johann Zarco taking the decision to leave the team after only 1 year of his 2 year deal. This led to Syahrin being instead replaced by Iker Lecuona.

2020

After losing his spot in MotoGP, Hafizh returned to Moto2 with the Aspar Team for the 2020 season.

Career statistics

Grand Prix motorcycle racing

By season

* Season still in progress.

By class

Races by year

YearClassBike12345678910111213141516171819PosPts
2011Moto2MoriwakiQATSPAPORFRACATGBRNEDITAGERCZEINDRSMARAJPNAUSMAL
20		VALNC0
Moto2FTRQATSPAPORFRACATGBRNEDGERITAINDCZERSMARAJPNMAL
3		AUSVAL23rd16
Moto2KalexQATAMESPAFRA
21		ITACAT
18		NEDGERINDCZEGBRRSMARAMAL
15		AUSJPNVAL
Ret		29th1
2014Moto2KalexQAT
15		AME
15		ARG
20		SPA
21		FRA
15		ITA
25		CAT
Ret		NED
10		GER
18		IND
7		CZE
13		GBR
8		RSM
20		ARA
11		JPN
8		AUS
Ret		MAL
Ret		VAL
16		19th42
2015Moto2KalexQAT
12		AME
6		ARG
10		SPA
12		FRA
9		ITA
Ret		CAT
14		NED
15		GER
16		IND
Ret		CZE
14		GBR
16		RSM
18		ARA
7		JPN
5		AUS
16		MAL
8		VAL
Ret		16th64
2016Moto2KalexQAT
4		ARG
6		AME
16		SPA
11		FRA
8		ITA
5		CAT
4		NED
Ret		GER
7		AUT
21		CZE
6		GBR
4		RSM
7		ARA
14		JPN
13		AUS
Ret		MAL
5		VAL
15		9th118
2017Moto2KalexQAT
Ret		ARG
10		AME
11		SPA
13		FRA
11		ITA
12		CAT
9		NED
8		GER
11		CZE
15		AUT
10		GBR
17		RSM
2		ARA
16		JPN
3		AUS
16		MAL
6		VAL
6		10th106
2018MotoGPYamahaQAT
14		ARG
9		AME
Ret		SPA
16		FRA
12		ITA
12		CAT
Ret		NED
18		GER
11		CZE
14		AUT
16		GBR
C		RSM
19		ARA
18		THA
12		JPN
10		AUS
Ret		MAL
10		VAL
10		16th46
2019MotoGPKTMQAT
20		ARG
16		AME
18		SPA
19		FRA
14		ITA
Ret		CAT
Ret		NED
15		GER
16		CZE
Ret		AUT
Ret		GBR
13		RSM
15		ARA
21		THA
20		JPN
19		AUS
15		MAL
16		VAL
15		23rd9
2020Moto2Speed UpQAT
19		SPA
6		AND
CZE
AUT
STY
RSM
EMI
CAT
FRA
ARA
TER
EUR
VAL
THA
MAL
ARG
11th*10*

* Season still in progress.