Malaysian rider Hahizh Syahrin, age 25, will receive a grant from his home country to subsidize his new ride on the Angel Nieto Team in the 2020 FIM Moto2 World Championship.

Syahrin was recruited as a last-minute fill in for Jonas Folger on the Monster Energy Yamaha Tech3 team in the 2018 MotoGP World Championship, and he did well, scoring 46 points and nearly earning the MotoGP Rookie of the Year award.

That performance earned Syahrin the opportunity to remain with Tech3 as it switched from Yamaha to KTM and raced as the Red Bull KTM Tech3 team in the 2019 MotoGP World Championship. Syahrin, however, struggled to get results on the KTM RC16 in 2019, his contract was not renewed for 2020, and he lost his spot in the MotoGP World Championship.

Syahrin then landed a ride with the Angel Nieto Team in the 2020 Moto2 World Championship, but according to a January 10 report on freemalaysiatoday.com, Syahrin does not receive a salary or travel expenses with the ride and has been unable to find sponsors to cover his needs.

Now, the Malaysian government, specifically the Youth and Sports Ministry boss Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman, plans to give Syahrin a grant from the National Sports Trust Fund, according to the report.

“I will help him as much as I can because before this [our focus] was to find sponsors from corporate companies,” Rahman was quoted as saying to reporters.  “I have discussed the matter with the ministry’s top management, and we are still waiting for Hafizh’s application. We will continue to find ways to help him.”

Rahman also called on Malaysian businesses to step up to help Syahrin.