On October 13, The Toyota Gazoo Racing GT Cup Asia Finals commenced, where a new champion was crowned in 2024. Malaysia’s Taj Aiman clinched the top spot followed by reigning champ Andika Rama from Indonesia in second place.
For finishing in the top two in the overall championship, Aiman and Rama are qualified as two of the 24 finalists racing in the Toyota GR GT Cup World Finals, taking place alongside the Gran Turismo World Series 2024 finals in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
The Toyota GR GT Cup has multiple ways of qualifying to the world finals. Most of the slots are through online qualifiers. Toyota also provides slots in the finals through offline regional championships, the Toyota GR GT Cup Asia where drivers from Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines are represented, being one of them.
Rama is a veteran in the Gran Turismo competitive scene, participating since 2010 (including the GT Academy, the gamer-to-racer program which recently been adapted as a film). He will be making his second appearance on the world stage, following last year’s Toyota GR GT Cup World Finals appearance.
Aiman meanwhile has began making his mark by hoisting the Malaysian flag in international Gran Turismo competition, including the Olympics Series, and as part of Team Malaysia in last year’s GT World Series Nations Cup Finals. His best finish in the Toyota GR GT Cup Asia was second place, all the way back in 2020, so him finishing on the top spot of the podium is a long time coming.
Ahead of the Toyota Gazoo Racing GT Cup World Finals, Gamer Matters caught up with the two best GT7 drivers in Southeast Asia to talk their mindset ahead of the event, the unexpected monkey wrench being thrown by way of that massive physics update in GT7, and their thoughts on the current state of the sim racing community in the region.
The interview has been edited edited for clarity.
What Drives A Racer
Gamer Matters (GM): Would you consider yourself a gamer first, or a racer?
Taj Aiman: For my part, I’m a racer actually, but during my free time I do play other games, so during race days I’m going to be fully focused.
Andika Rama: Racing is my childhood dream. I want to race, but cannot due to lack of budget. So I tend to the gamer side and then here we are, racing in the games.
Gamer Matters (GM): It’s always like that, the story when it comes to racing game players, they always want to go do motorsport as the end goal. Is it true for both of you? Do you guys want to race actual race cars?
Rama: Yes.
Aiman: Definitely.
GM: For now, we race pretend race cars. Virtual race cars. On that note, what got you two into sim racing? Was it Gran Turismo? Was it other racing games?
Aiman: For me, I think it’s because during my childhood times I do play a lot of video games and from there I started to get more interested in racing. If I’m not mistaken I started during Gran Turismo 2 or Gran Turismo 3. Then the interest got more serious when with Gran Turismo Sport.
Rama: For me, I played racing games since kindergarten and primary school years, playing Gran Turismo 1. I think all of my video game collection is all racing games. I start doing esports around 2010-ish so it’s already 14 years for me doing this thing.
GM: Oh, you’ve been around!
Rama and Aiman: [laughs]
The Prep Work For Amsterdam, And The New Physics
GM: Ready for Amsterdam? What sort of preparations have you been doing for the upcoming finals?
Rama: For me, just practicing, practicing, practicing, practicing. Because at this point [during this interview] we still don’t know the [car and track] combo they’re gonna use at Amsterdam.
Aiman: Same goes for me too. It’s my second appearance in Amsterdam. I’ve been together with my fellow friends, my teammates, representing Malaysia for Nations Cup last year. This year is going to be a whole new experience. We’ll be doing our best.
GM: For a sim racer of your caliber, how many hours of practice do you consider enough for a day?
Rama: For me, at least two hours.
Aiman: Same for me. Two, three, four hours.
Rama: If it’s in the weekend, we can do more like five or six hours. Depends on the time we have.
Aiman: We usually do practice a lot because the current physics, every time the game is going to be changed for the physics, it’ll take some time to practice.
GM: On that topic, I would like to ask about the recent change in physics. I think the update dropped just before the start of the regional qualifiers. How do you cope with that?
Rama: For me, it was one week before before the regionals. The week before I did another race, I got little time to practice on GT, I just like, “oh this is the car, this is the track, so I just drive… okay, okay,” then I leave the game. Then I came back after, the update arrived. [laughs] Okay, so everyone starting from zero, let’s go! [continues to laugh]
Aiman: The previous physics [model], some cars, they react differently. With the current physics, it’s much more on the braking, it’s much more stable. Maybe for the current physics, maybe it suits the best for us.
Rama: Easier for us, actually.
GM: Is it because it feels more realistic to an actual car?
Rama: I’m not saying it’s more realistic because, we never drove the real thing before. I don’t know what a [Toyota GR010 Hybrid Hypercar] feels like in real life [laughs]. But for me it’s more “drivable”.
Aiman aggressively nods in agreement while Rama explained his answer.
GM: So it’s more suited towards your driving style?
Rama: Yeah, or maybe more comfortable.
Aiman: You have to change your driving style. Some cars you probably can’t throttle early, or braking much more later. It’s kind of different from there.
Can The Rising SEA Tide Be World Class?
GM: How do you guys stack up? Between the talents in Southeast Asia, and you guys are the best of the best here, and compared to the world stage. Are we there yet? Can we compete?
Aiman: In previous years we can see the level is maybe a bit far. But with the physics changing every year, if we put a lot of practice I do feel that we could match them. Maybe what separates us is the experience.
Rama: Agree with Taj as well. At first I thought the world level is just so far from us. I think it’s reachable, if we put in the time.
GM: Can you talk a bit about the local “e-motorsport” scene. How do you think the local community of sim racers are doing, in Indonesia and Malaysia?
Aiman: In Malaysia, they actively do small tournaments and it’s good for us and newcomers to get involved in the scene. I can see there are more active right now unlike last year or the previous years. But it’s a good improvement, getting more talents out there to get involved. Hopefully we can see a new, bright talent!
Rama: It’s improving year by year. In Indonesia, more people, young people are coming each year, although in different games. Not everyone is playing Gran Turismo, maybe playing other sims. I think it’s improving a lot. For now, in Indonesia, more community events, something like that. Maybe at some point, the communities have hosted LAN events, so yeah, it’s growing.
GM: It’s nice to see that the grassroots community is growing. It’s also interesting that big sponsors like Toyota are involved, like this regional championship. Do you think it’s a net improvement that big car manufacturers, or sponsors in general to come in the sim racing scene?
Rama: I think big sponsors like Toyota is definitely needed for the improvement for the industry. Because I think, not to belittle the grassroots scene, but if we stay grassroots, we simply cannot improve. We need help from say, Toyota, to set up the big stage, setting the target for newcomers who goes “Oh, what do you want to be or just sim racing in the community, or do you want to be like Taj Aiman? Or do you want to be like Danesh [Wigneswaran]? Or do you want to be like Andika Rama?” Because if we have a bigger stage, we have the target for the new talent. They have something to achieve.
Aiman: I can see right now, Toyota in our region has probably like four or five years ago they did a young development program (Toyota Gazoo Racing Rookies – Young Talent Development Program). It’s a good platform for youths to jump from a sim racing to go-karts to a real car. It’s a good program to do, a good way to seek talents from there.
The Gamer To Racer Pipeline
GM: The gamer to racer pipeline is real, eh? On that note, it’s interesting to see how the sim racing scene, the “e-motorsport” scene, is rather separate from the bigger gaming/esports ecosystem. It’s more aligned with the motorsports scene. What do you feel about that?
Rama: For me, I want the “e-motorsports” scene to be towards more on the esports side. On the esports side, there’s more people there. I want this industry to become bigger and more well-known. I think esports is more reachable for everyone. If you put the tag as “motorsport”, maybe not everyone can join. But if we tagged as “esports”, maybe people say “oh I can do this.” That’s why we need more competition, more support from everyone, make this thing reachable to anyone. But, let’s say if the prize is to drive the real thing, that’s good! [laughs]
GM: Yeah, they need to more GT Academy, I agree. [laughs] Better bring that back. The Gran Turismo movie inspired some people to play the game.
Rama: Actually, I did that. [laughs]
Aiman: Andika was one of the finalists in the GT Academy before. Hopefully, you never know, if GT plans to do the GT Academy again.
Rama: Hopefully Toyota helps. [laughs]
GM: Toyota, take note [laughs]. Any last words?
Rama: Thank you everyone for all your support. Thank you Toyota for providing us the platform to shine brighter and go higher at the world level. Hopefully, me and Taj can fight there and give the best results for us.
Aiman: Thank you to Toyota for supporting us throughout this many years. Hopefully in the next race we will do our best and maybe me and Andika could probably sneak a podium finish in global finals, you never know!
Catch Taj Aiman and Andika Rama, the two best GT7 racers in Southeast Asia, race to bring glory to the region in the The Toyota GR GT Cup World Finals 2024. The event will take place on December 7.
Huge thanks to Toyota for setting up the interview.