The Honda Petronas MIE team had already announced its squad for the 2025 season. Surprisingly, Malaysian drivers have now been replaced in the Superbike and Supersport World Championships.
In the Superbike category, Japan’s Midori Moriwaki Honda team originally planned to compete in the World Supersport Championship with Tarran Mackenzie and Adam Norrodin along with Kaito Toba and Khairul Idwam Pawi. This robot was listed as a quarter of Moriwaki drivers in the member lists published on December 16, 2024.
Now the Honda team was surprised with two new drivers. The two Malaysians in the team are being replaced by two other Malaysians. Zaqhwan Zaidi will replace Norrodin and Syarifuddin Azman will replace Pawi. Both are rookies in their respective categories.
Zaidi is no stranger to Asia: the 29-year-old brings deep Superbike experience from the Asian championship. The Malaysian won the series in 2022, finished second in 2023 and last year was sixth overall, both times on a Honda. “I am very happy that I will be racing in the 2025 World Superbike Championship. My goal is to make the most of this experience and push myself to the limit,” emphasized Zaidi. “It will not be easy as the category is very competitive, but I am happy to accept the challenge. I hope I can achieve my goals and gradually achieve better results. I don’t know European circuits or motorcycles, so I will have to work hard to learn as soon as possible.”
23-year-old Azman is known internationally from a different start in the Moto3 World Championship. He does not have any experience in high-level games. “I am very happy to make my debut in the World Supersport Championship,” stressed Azman. “My goal for this season is to gain a lot of valuable experience. This is my first year in this category. I will try to understand race by race where and how I can improve and I will work as hard as I can.”
