High-Speed Hunk, Hafiz Koh!

VROOM! It's F1 weekend here, and what better way to launch it in The Living Room than to have a Singaporean race car driver in the hot seat?

Meet Hafiz Koh, Singapore's very own. I must admit that my first impression of him was that he looked like a gym rat, a body builder.

Don't fault me ~ I didn't know race car drivers had to be this fit. But Hafiz tells us that they do - most of them can outdo any triathlete in competition because of the level of fitness demanded of them in F1 racing.

Singapore's high-speed hunk, Hafiz Koh grew up racing - it's in his blood.

Did you know they lose 3kg to 5kg after every race? Lots of water is lost from their bodies in those intense 45 mins due to the high G-Force, he explains. "At high speeds, water actually flies out of your tear ducts!"

We learnt a lot about F1 racing from this guy ~ a first-hand insight into what it feels like squeezing into one of these mean machines. The training involved. The diet. The sacrifices one has to make...

But Hafiz has racing in his blood. Both his mum & dad were racers back in the 80s. As a kid, he would wake up at 5am to train on the race-track before heading off to school!

I was curious about his parents, especially his ethnic heritage. With a name like "Hafiz Koh", wouldn't you be? Well, Hafiz reveals that his dad is Chinese. His mum, Indian-Pakistani with a bit of Arab blood!

Catch Hafiz on Ch5 as he commentates the F1 races!

Well, other than dabbling in hosting & acting, Hafiz also plays the saxophone. He picked it up because his mum always wanted one of her kids to play music for her after dinner.

"My sisters played the piano, but they both dropped out," he shares. "So when I was in NS, I asked my friend to teach me three of her favourite songs, and surprised her on her birthday!" Aww...

Who knows? We might just see Hafiz Koh playing the sax at the next President's Star Challenge? *wink*

Oh, and he's making a guest appearance on Polo Boys, a new drama series on Ch5 debuting in October. Off-air, he shared with us that he was shocked when he arrived on the set and was told to change into a small pair of swimming trunks. Was that a bemused or nervous chuckle we detected? *LOL*

Have a Vroom Vroom weekend!!!