HE MADE his first attempt at professional circuit racing last year.
Unfortunately his race car broke down after just four hours into the 12-hour endurance race.
Singapore driver Jansen Tan did not get to finish the race.
Determined to stage his comeback, Tan, took part in the Sepang 1,000km race held earlier this month.
He raced in the same circuit.
But this time round, Tan represented a different team and raced in a different car.
The 28-year-old product development manager drove magnificently on the Sepang International Circuit in a built-to-perfection Honda Civic EK9.
Not only was his team the only Singapore side to complete the race, they also managed to make the podium.
Tan is one of three drivers to race for HKS Garage R Racing team this year. His team claimed third position in Class 2 (production cars that are 1,600cc and below) category.
More than 50 teams took part in the race.
Even though Tan was racing in Class 2, he managed to overtake some of the bigger capacity's cars in Class 1, to claim sixth position overall.
During the qualifying rounds, Tan had clocked the best qualifying time of two minutes 44 seconds a lap.
He started the race at 24th position. Two other drivers, Kelvin Phon and Moh Tze Yang, rotated with Tan to drive in the race which ended after eight hours and 50 minutes.
Each driver was allowed to drive a maximum of 75 minutes per session.
Said Tan: 'Once the first car clocked 1,000km, the race stopped. We were about three laps behind. Each lap is 5.543km.'
Fifth position
Tan who clocked more laps than the other two drivers, had managed to race his way up to fifth position just an hour before the race ended.
His team-mate Phon took over to finish in third position.
Said a humble Tan: 'We succeeded with team effort. We gained a lot of time as our pitstop strategy was very fast. A few nights before the actual race, we had practised driver's change to further reduce our pitstop time.
'During the race, I saw many cars breaking down along the way and some drivers were very aggressive in their overtaking. I had many close shaves. Thankfully, our car was flawless.'
