Alex Yoong

Alex Yoong Born (1976-07-20) 20 July 1976 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Formula One World Championship career Nationality Malaysian Active years 2001–2002 Teams Minardi Entries 18 (14 starts) Championships 0 Wins 0 Podiums 0 Career points 0 Pole positions 0 Fastest laps 0 First entry 2001 Italian Grand Prix Last entry 2002 Japanese Grand Prix 24 Hours of Le Mans career Years 2006–2007 Teams Racing for Holland, Charouz Racing System Best finish 8th (2007) Class wins 0

Alexander Charles Yoong Loong (simplified Chinese: 熊龙; traditional Chinese: 熊龍; pinyin: Xióng Lóng, (born 20 July 1976 in Kuala Lumpur), is a Malaysian race car driver of European and Asian parentage. His mother, Joanna Bean, is from England. His father, Hanifah Yoong Yin Fah (熊英華), a Malaysian Chinese, is a former racer and manager of the Shah Alam circuit between 1988 and 1998. Yoong married Arriana Teoh, who was Miss Malaysia World 1997 in 2002 and has a son, Alister, born in 2003.

Early Life

Yoong was born on 20 July 1976 at the Sambhi Clinic in Kuala Lumpur. His mother, Johanna Bean, was a British expatriate and his father Hanifah Yoong was a Malaysian of Chinese descent who raced sedans in the 1970's. He has one Sibling, Phillippa. Yoong became an avid follower of Formula One by the age of 4. Given an Kawasaki 50cc motocross on his 8th birthday, he demonstrated the ability to be able to race.

Early career

Alex Yoong racing in Formula Asia 2000 in Zhuhai.

His early racing career started in saloon cars in 1992 when he was 16. Yoong became the youngest driver in Malaysian motorsport history and moved into a one-make Proton series. He secured his first pole and win in his fourth role and ended up winning two out of five races. In late 1992, Yoong took up saloon racing and took a Toyota Corolla to the Macau Grand Prix and finished 3rd in the 160cc class in the Guia race. He then went on to win the first ever single seater race held in China - the Formula Asia International race - in the streets of Zhuhai in 1994. He won the 1995 Malaysian Formula Asia championship and was the runner up in the same year's Formula Asia International championship with multiple wins and podium positions. Within the same year, Yoong assisted in the filming of Jackie Chan's racing film Thunderbolt at Shah Alam which led to Chan describing him as a "very good racing driver". Yoong was contacted by Paul Stewart to test a Formula Vauxhall car before he gained the opportunity to test a Formula Renault Sport machine at Donington Park and Snetterton for the Startline Racing team. The European campaign started with the British Formula Renault in 1996 and 1997, then two partially completed British Formula Three seasons in 1998 and 1999 due to the Asian financial crisis. He had a podium second in Brands Hatch's Formula Three race in 1998 and was often in the top five.

His career took a step up with Formula 3000 halfway through 1999 and he achieved a credible second in the rain soaked Donington Park circuit in the same year. A much publicised massive accident in the Formula One weekend's Formula 3000 race at Spa's Eau Rouge saw him sidelined for two weeks before taking to the tracks again in Italy. He then drove a season and a half in the Formula Nippon championship in 2000 and 2001 before he was offered the Formula One drive with Minardi.

Formula One

2001

Yoong was visited by Minardi Sporting Director Rupert Manwaring during a visit to Malaysia to meet with potential backers for a Formula One seat. Manwaring offered him a seat, possibly as early as the British Grand Prix. By 5 July, Yoong had obtained sponsorship money from the government-backed Magnum Corporation and tested at Mugello becoming the first Malaysian to drive an Formula One car. Yoong made his Formula One debut at the Italian Grand Prix replacing Tarso Marques. On Friday practice, electrical problems limited Yoong's running and gearbox trouble cut short Saturday free practice. During Qualifying, he did not complete a flying lap with more gearbox problems and had to share the spare car with team-mate Fernando Alonso. Yoong retired from the race whilst running 15th. At Indianapolis, he qualified 22nd and overtook Arrows driver Enrique Bernoldi at the first corner. Yoong eventually retired after 38 laps due to gearbox failure. At Suzuka, a track he knew well, Yoong finished in 16th, 3 laps down.

2002

For 2002, Alonso left the team and Mark Webber became Yoong's new teammate. During the first race in Australia, he was beset by gearbox problems in free practice and spun twice when caught out by a wet track. Yoong qualified 21st ahead of Takuma Sato. During the race, he was up into 9th at the end of the first lap. Yoong was racing as high as 5th after passing David Coulthard for 6th. He eventually finished 7th after being passed by Mika Salo. This result was Yoong's best placed finish in Formula One. At his home race in Malaysia, he outpaced Eddie Irvine's Jaguar during Friday Practice. Yoong qualified 22nd and at the start of the race, he overtaked his team-mate Webber at the first first segment of the race. His refuelling rig malfunctioned at his first pit stop costing him time and lost a place to Irvine. Yoong retired after a collision with Irvine. In Brazil, Yoong finished 13th despite spinning and called the toughest race he had ever done. At San Marino, he qualified 0.474s outside the 107% rule and failed to qualify. Yoong and Webber did not race in Spain after several rear and front wing failures for both drivers throughout practice and qualifying. In Austria, Yoong set a time over 4.2s slower than the pole sitter. During the race, he spun in fromt of Ralf Schumacher before the Williams lapped him. Yoong retired with an engine failure.

At Monaco, Yoong participated in the Historic Grand Prix of Monaco before the actual race. He drove a Lotus 72 that was driven by Ronnie Peterson. He led until a safety car intervention when Yoong discovered his car was stuck in 5th gear and was forced to drive in this manner at the end of the race. During the actual grand prix weekend, Yoong sustained an accident during Thursday practice followed by a similar incident in qualifying when on his first flying lap, he slid into the Ste Devote barrier. The race saw Yoong retired after running over debris on the apporach to Massanet and sidewalled the armco to sustain damage his right rear trackrod. In Canada, he finished 14th despite a drink bottle button not being able to function and gained a penalty for speeding in the pit lane. At the Nurburging, Yoong delared the track "a bit of a go-kart circuit" as he disliked the layout. A second drive-through penalty was gained after he moved as the fifth red light came on at the start. At Silverstone, he failed to make the 107% cut during qualifying whilst a 10th place finish at Magny-Cours came as a welcome relief despite a spin. At the German Grand Prix, Yoong and his crew believed he would not be able to qualify and this was proven true after Yoong missed the 107% cut by 0.2s.

Rumors spread that Yoong was to be replaced by either Alonso, who was Renault's test driver or Bryan Herta and Justin Wilson. Minardi eventually settled for Anthony Davidson to competed in the Hungarian and Belgium Grand Prix whilst Yoong underwent a program in testing.

Yoong eventually returned for the Italian Grand Prix. Despite an electronic problem at his pitstop which cost him several minutes, Yoong ran comfortably ahead of Sato during the race to finish 13th. In America, his form improved to qualify 20th with a time 3 seconds slower than Michael Schumacher, but during the race, Yoong suffered an engine failure. At the final race at Suzuka, he made a brillant start with an agressive first lap that saw him pass Webber. On lap 9, Yoong spun into the gravel at turn two on Lap 14.

He is sometimes considered "one of the worst drivers F1 has ever seen".

An assortment of drives

After his Formula One career, Yoong initially struggled to remain visible in international motorsports. A promising start in the American Champ Car series in 2003 (ninth in Mexico), his season was cut short due to the team's lack of funds, and Yoong failed to impress in his few drives in the Australian V8 Supercar series in 2004. He has remained an enthusiastic promoter of motorsports in his home country however, and has been seen doing media and Formula One commentating work for Malaysian television and ESPN-Star. He also co-presented Formula One live coverage at 8TV.

A1 Grand Prix

Since his arrival in A1 Grand Prix Yoong has won three races: two sprint races and one feature race.

He drove for A1 Team Malaysia in the A1 Grand Prix series. He finished his 2005–06 A1GP season with one race win at Shanghai International Circuit, China, and two second places at Sentul Circuit, Indonesia and Shanghai. With Yoong and Fairuz Fauzy, A1 Team Malaysia finished in fifth place overall.

During the 2006–07 A1 Grand Prix season, Yoong has remained with A1 Team Malaysia, winning both races of the second round of the championship at Brno. He scored another win on the Mexico Sprint race.

Le Mans Series

After the 2005–06 A1 Grand Prix season, Yoong raced in the 2006 Le Mans Series as well as the 2006 Le Mans 24 Hrs for Jan Lammers, the A1 Team Netherlands seat holder with team Racing For Holland. Yoong was very competitive, holding third position in Lammers' Dome-Judd when the throttle stuck, sending the car into the wall at the first chicane on the Mulsanne straight and breaking both steering arms.

After the 2006–07 A1 Grand Prix season, Yoong once again returned to the Le Mans Series with Charouz Racing System. He teamed up with Jan Charouz of the Czech Republic and Stefan Mucke of Germany. The team entered the most famous of endurance races, the 24 Heures du Mans and the Le Mans Series.

In the 2007 24 Hours of Le Mans, the team completed 338 laps and finish in eighth overall and fifth in LMP1 Class.

GP2 Asia Series

Alex Yoong driving his Meritus GP2 Asia race car in Shanghai.

For the 2008–09 GP2 Asia Series season, Yoong signed to drive for the Qi-Meritus Mahara team. He was replaced by Marco Bonanomi for the third race weekend in Bahrain, due to a lack of sufficient time for racing.

Intercontinental Le Mans Cup

Alex Yoong (centre) with Marchy Lee (left) and Matthew Marsh (right) after winning the GTC class of the 2010 1000 km of Zhuhai.

In November 2010, Alex Yoong partnered Marchy Lee and Matthew Marsh at the 2010 1000 km of Zhuhai, driving an Audi R8 LMS. The trio won the GTC class.

i1 Super Series

In the last quarter of 2011, Yoong joined the inaugural i1 Super Series as an International class driver.

2011 SEA Games

Alex Yoong competed in the waterskiing tournament in the 1997 Jakarta Games where he won a silver medal. He returned to Water skiing at the 2011 Southeast Asian Games and he claimed one gold medal and one silver medal in the men’s slalom and jump events on 17 November 2011.

Personal life

Alex's younger sisters Aaliyah Yoong and Philippa Yoong are both water skiers. Aaliyah became the youngest ever gold medallist in the history of the SEA Games since its inception in 1959, when she won gold medal in water skiing at the 2011 SEA Games with a record of 2,960 points to finish ahead of Promsunitsit Sareeya of Thailand, who managed 2,570 points. Philippa Yoong claimed the bronze for Malaysia with 1,860 points.

Philippa also won the gold medal in the women's slalom event, 14 years after her initial triumph in Jakarta in 1997. It is her second SEA Games gold medal.

Racing record

Complete International Formula 3000 results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap.)

Year	Entrant	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	DC	Points
1999	Monaco Motorsport	IMO	MON	CAT	MAG	SIL	A1R DNQ	HOC DNQ	HUN DNQ	SPA Ret	MNZ Ret	NC	0

Complete Formula One results

(key)

Year	Entrant	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	WDC	Pts.
2001	European Minardi F1	Minardi PS01B	European V10	AUS	MAL	BRA	SMR	ESP	AUT	MON	CAN	EUR	FRA	GBR	GER	HUN	BEL	ITA Ret	USA Ret	JPN 16	26th	0
2002	KL Minardi Asiatech	Minardi PS02	Asiatech V10	AUS 7	MAL Ret	BRA 13	SMR DNQ	ESP DNS	AUT Ret	MON Ret	CAN 14	EUR Ret	GBR DNQ	FRA 10	GER DNQ	HUN	BEL	ITA 13	USA Ret	JPN Ret	20th	0

Complete CART results

(key)

Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	Rank	Points
2003	Coyne	STP	MTY 9	LBH 19	BRH 18	LAU 17	MIL	LS	POR	CLE	TOR	VAN	ROA	MDO	MTL	DEN	MIA	MXC	SRF	FON	23rd	4

Complete A1 Grand Prix results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Entrant	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	DC	Points
2005–06	Malaysia	GBR SPR	GBR FEA 5	GER SPR 6	GER FEA 16	POR SPR	POR FEA	AUS SPR 8	AUS FEA 5	MYS SPR	MYS FEA 5	UAE SPR 10	UAE FEA Ret	RSA SPR Ret	RSA FEA Ret	IDN SPR 4	IDN FEA 2	MEX SPR 7	MEX FEA 11	USA SPR Ret	USA FEA 10	CHN SPR 1	CHN FEA 2	5th	74
2006–07		NED SPR 12	NED FEA 17	CZE SPR 1	CZE FEA 1	BEI SPR 14	BEI FEA 12	MYS SPR 4	MYS FEA 7	IDN SPR 12	IDN FEA 5	NZL SPR 19	NZL FEA 11	AUS SPR 7	AUS FEA 6	RSA SPR Ret	RSA FEA 8	MEX SPR 1	MEX FEA 5	SHA SPR 6	SHA FEA 11	GBR SPR 5	GBR SPR 9	6th	55
2007–08		NED SPR 16	NED FEA Ret	CZE SPR 17	CZE FEA 14	MYS SPR 9	MYS FEA 13	ZHU SPR Ret	ZHU FEA Ret	NZL SPR Ret	NZL FEA Ret	AUS SPR	AUS FEA	RSA SPR	RSA FEA	MEX SPR 9	MEX FEA 15	SHA SPR 4	SHA FEA 6	GBR SPR	GBR SPR			15th	25

24 Hours of Le Mans results

Year	Class	No	Tyres	Car	Team	Co-Drivers	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
2006	LMP1	14	D	Dome S101Hb Judd GV5 5.0L V10	Racing for Holland	Jan Lammers Stefan Johansson	182	DNF	DNF
2007	LMP1	15	M	Lola B07/17 Judd GV5.5 S2 5.5L V10	Charouz Racing System	Jan Charouz Stefan Mücke	338	8th	5th

Complete GP2 Series results

Complete GP2 Asia Series results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Entrant	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	DC	Points
2008–09	Qi-Meritus Mahara	CHN FEA 14	CHN SPR 9	ARE FEA Ret	ARE SPR C	BHR1 FEA	BHR1 SPR	QAT FEA	QAT SPR	MYS FEA	MYS SPR	BHR2 FEA	BHR2 SPR	25th	0

External links

• AlexYoong.com
• A1 Team Malaysia Home Page
• Profile on F1 Rejects
• F1 Rejects interview
• Twitter Profile: @alexyoong