Red Bull Rookies Team Line-up Announced

Launched in 2007, the Red Bull Female Driver Search was created to find, fund and nurture aspiring female drivers to form an all-female racing team, known as the Red Bull Rookies Racing Team, to participate in the Merdeka Millennium Endurance Race in 2008. Another team of new female rookies was formed in 2009 to take on the newly created Sepang 1000km race.

Last year, the search was extended to Brunei, giving rise to a team comprising of 2 Malaysian and 2 Bruneian girls. This year, Red Bull decides to have a Singaporean - alongside 2 Malaysians and a Bruneian - in its racing team.

This inaugural Red Bull Female Driver Search in Singapore have an overwhelming response to it, with more than 500 eager female drivers coming forward to sign up for this unique programme. After several elimination rounds to narrow down the field, it eventually came down to between Emmiline Ang and Melissa Huang.

Emmiline, 24, holds a job as a research officer at A*STAR, while Melissa, 27, is a nurse by occupation at the National Heart Centre. Incidentally, these two bubbly girls have between 4 to 5 years of driving experience, and are no strangers to driving cars with manual transmission (albeit mostly on weekend in their respective parents' cars). Prior to joining the Red Bull Female Driver Search, they have never been on a racetrack, let alone participate in an actual race.

Along with the three finalists from Brunei, these two girls were put through a final evaluation session on Monday at Sepang International Circuit, where they were assessed on not just their driving skills but also their teamwork skills, fitness level and technical knowledge.

Mr. Kenvin Low, the team manager for the Red Bull Rookies Racing Team, has the not so enviable job of selecting the sole representatives from Brunei and Singapore. "There are some vast skills, some raw talent and a lot of passions in all 5 finalists from Singapore and Brunei. They were all equally good and so we decided to do a final shoot-out to determine the best driver," said Mr. Low.

He added, "Our main goal was to search for talents with steely determination, enduring physicality, strength of mind and dynamic personality to be part of our multi-national team."

To prepare them for the final evaluation, all the finalists were put through a full-day driving course, comprising of both the theoretical and practical aspects of racing. However, the heavy downpour in the early morning of the final evaluation day threw everything into disarray for they have never driven on a sodden track before this.

Though the storm passed over early on in the session, the surface of the track remained fairly wet, offering much reduced level of grip. The finalists were taken out onto the track to be familiarised with the track conditions before their shoot-outs. Thankfully, the blazing sun which appeared shortly after dried up the track rather quickly.

Shortly after the shoot-outs, Mr Low announced the selected Rookies from Brunei and Singapore. And representing our country is Emmiline, who appeared to be shell-shocked at her appointment. When asked for her feelings about being the Singapore's choice, she said, "It's an honour and I couldn't be happier to have an opportunity to represent the team in racing in one of Asia's leading endurance race as it is a very competitive and great race. I look forward to start the trainings and prepare for the race. I hope I will do my country proud as well."

As the rules of the Sepang 1000km race stipulate that all participating drivers must have at least raced in one Malaysian Super Series race, Emmiline will be getting behind the wheel of a Proton Satria Neo R3 Clubsport track machine this coming weekend for her very first race experience.

For the Sepang 1000km race happening from 1^st to 3^rd December, Emmiline will share the driving duties with Siti Shahkirah Shaharul (17) and Mark Darwin (21), both from Malaysia, and Fauziah Binti Hj Haziz (27) from Brunei.