Singapore—A Singaporean youth has emerged victorious in the Logitech G Challenge Asia Pacific e-racing championship in Melbourne, held on October 12, Saturday.
Twenty-one-year-old Ar Muhammad Aleef Mohamed Rafik bested seven other racers in the finals of the championship, including Matt Smith, one of the best simulator racers from New Zealand.
Lim Keong Wee, co-founder of the Legion of Racers, said, “This is a wonderful moment not just for Legion of Racers but also for e-sports in Singapore, as a Singaporean has been crowned as Asia-Pacific’s top simulator racer. It is our hope that we are able to go further and aim to put a Singaporean on the global performance map in e-sports and simulator racing.”
The 21-year-old Mr Aleef is a professional e-sports athlete with Legion of Racers. After three rounds of racing he triumphed over e-racers from Chinese Taipei, Japan and New Zealand.
The competition was composed of one qualifying sequence that lasted 10 minutes, as well as a 10-lap race, with points given out at every step. Mr Aleef garnered the highest number of points, as won all the races in the event.
The next step for the champion is a slot in the Worldwide Grand Finals next month in the United States. Mr Aleef will be representing the country under the banner of the Legion of Racers.
And should he emerge victorious yet again, he will gain the opportunity to compete against top notch racers from the McLaren Shadow Project.
After his victory he said, “Honestly, I am speechless! I did not know what to expect coming into this tournament among Asia-Pacific’s best but I prepared as well as I could, putting in hours and hours in practice everyday. So it feels amazing to have first of all won against Asia’s best, and secondly, to be able to go up against the world’s best next.”
Last October, Mr Aleef was one of the top three finalists at the Legion of Racers 2019 Finals held at Gamestart 2018 at Suntec City.
He is one of a select few in the country who is a professional e-sports athlete.
The young champion started simulator racing as a young boy, and has been hooked on it since the tender age of 9. He now says that he will be hedging his weaknesses in preparation for the finals in November.
“I identified some weaknesses on my end which I will work on more in the month preceding the world finals. Having trained with the Logitech G29 before the tournament helped me alot as well, being able to extract the most time with the wheel. Hence I will continue to train with the wheel to better prepare me to what’s about to come.”
Mr Aleef will also be undergoing go-kart training to stay in top physical form. He, along with Jaden Low and Jason Tay, two other Legion of Racers professional e-sports athletes, were awarded go-kart training by AutoInc Karting, which conducts kart racing throughout the region./ TISG
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