Malaysia’s Viper Niza Racing Team concluded its first full season of the 2025 Michelin 24H SERIES European Series with a hard-fought final round in Barcelona, finishing 4th in the GT3-AM Class standings.
The all-Malaysian team, led by driver and Team Principal Douglas Khoo, along with Dominic Ang, Melvin Moh, Afiq Yazid, and Aaron Lim, drove their Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO for 633 laps at the 24 Hours of Barcelona season finale in Spain. They finished 11th in the GT3 category and 22nd overall, after being as high as 7th in the early part of the race.
Ang started the race for the team, initially placing 10th before making the first scheduled pitstop for refueling and driver change after an hour. Khoo then took over in 12th place but quickly moved up to 7th before a collision with one of the Porsches ended their run.
“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 won the GT3-AM title, while Juta Racing and Hofor Racing took 2nd and 3rd places.
“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.”