Jaafar Reveals Plans for Sepang Wildcard in EBM Aston Martin

Image: Aston Martin

Malaysian driver Jazeman Jaafar has revealed plans to contest SUPER GT’s Sepang round at the wheel of a Earl Bamber Motorsport-entered Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo.

Jaafar, a former regular in series such as the FIA World Endurance Championship and GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS, made the announcement on Tuesday via his own social media networks, showing off the car he plans to share with Kerong Li.

Assuming its entry is accepted by SUPER GT organizer GTA, EBM will be one of a potential two local wildcard entries added to the GT300 class grid for the series’ first visit overseas since 2019, which is due to take place on June 26-28.

Michelin has been lined up as the tire supplier, giving the French brand a second car for the trip to Malaysia as only one of its two full-season GT300 entries, the No. 20 Shade Racing Toyota GR86 GT, is set to take part in the event.

“Racing in Japan, and in SUPER GT, has been one of my goals for a long time,” Jaafar told Sportscar365. “We were supposed to do the Sepang round in 2020, but then COVID hit and circumstances changed.

“I was still working on trying to make it happen and this opportunity came up, which I have been working on for the past seven or eight months, trying to find the right team, teammate, the right technical package. We had to find a tire supplier as well.

“EBM and Earl himself helped a lot in structuring this whole programme together, so very happy we pulled through. We’re also happy to have Michelin on board and we’ll be doing some tire development to prepare ourselves for the race.”

Jaafar, who spent last year racing in Lamborghini Super Trofeo Asia, does not have a full program for 2025 but did participate in the Sepang 12 Hours in March, and was part of the winning lineup for the Harmony Racing Ferrari team.

He revealed that EBM will conduct a day of testing, featuring day and night time running, next month, with a further test ahead of the race weekend itself also a possibility.

“The tires in SUPER GT are way different to other GT championships, so it’s about how extreme you can go with the setup,” Jaafar said. “I am very excited to learn about that and prepare as much as we can, because we want to do well.”

While the render features the No. 25 that is normally used by Tsuchiya Engineering, which is one of ten full-season GT300 entries set to miss out on the trip to Sepang, Jaafar clarified the actual race number would be No. 86, should its entry be accepted.

A spokesperson for the GTA was keen to stress that no final decision has been made regarding local wildcard entries, which would bolster the size of the GT300 field to 20 cars for the Malaysian event, and a total grid of 35 including the GT500s.