Singaporean crowned Asia-Pacific e-racing champion, soon to compete against the world's best e-racers

Singaporean Ar Muhammad Aleef Mohamed Rafik has been crowned the Logitech G Challenge Asia Pacific e-racing champion in Melbourne on Saturday (12 Oct), and is set to represent the country in the World Finals in Las Vegas next month where he will be facing the champions from other regions.
Mr Aleef, a 21-year-old student who is a professional e-sports athlete with Legion of Racers, emerged as the winner on Saturday after three rounds of racing in the finals against seven other racers from New Zealand, Japan, and Chinese Taipei.
With points awarded for each of the three rounds, Mr Aleef not only came out on top after winning all three rounds, but also ended up with the most number of points.
Mr Aleef will now head to the Worldwide Grand Finals, which will be held in November in the United States, where he will represent Singapore under the Legion of Racers (LOR) banner, competing against the rising stars from other regions.
If he wins at the global level, he will get a chance to race against the some of the world’s finest e-racers from the McLaren Shadow Project at the McLaren Technology Centre in the United Kingdom on 9 – 11 December, whereby the winner will go on to join the McLaren Shadow e-sports team.

“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,” said Mr Aleef.
Hooked on simulator racing since he was 9-years old, he stated that he will now try to work on his weaknesses as he prepares for the global finals next month.
“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 a lot 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,” he added.

Mr Aleef, who is one of the very few professional e-sports athletes in Singapore, signed on as a LOR professional athlete after finishing in the top three of the LOR 2019 Finals, alongside Jaden Low and Jason Tay, which was held at Gamestart 2018 at Suntec City last October.
“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,” said Lim Keong Wee, one of the co-founders of the LOR.