The home round of Asia Road Racing Championship brought mixed fortunes for India’s only participating team.
The Asia Road Racing Championship (ARRC) series is unarguably the most popular two-wheel racing spectacle in the continent. This year it returned to Chennai for the fourth round, and suffice it to say, it gave local fans enough reasons to cheer. Why? Because India’s only contesting team in the event scored their first-ever double podium on their home turf!
From India’s perspective, the fourth round of the series carried a lot more significance this year. You see, from 2018 onwards, Honda two-wheeler India decided to participate in ARRC as a solo team. Dubbed the Idemitsu Honda Racing India, the team is contesting in AP250 (Asian Production 250) and SS600 (Supersports 600) categories. In the AP250 class, the team endorses two Indian riders – Rajiv Sethu and Anish Shetty – while in the SS600 series, it’s Taiga Hada (Japan) who represents the home-grown team. In the AP250 class, both Indian riders use race-spec Honda CBR250RR motorcycles. However, these aren’t the single-cylinder one-make CBR250R cup bikes that you usually see in races in India. In fact, these are twin-cylinder race bikes based on the CBR250RR that’s sold in global markets.
Tough luck
The home round for Sethu and Shetty was a mixed bag of sorts. In the qualifying session, the Indian boys qualified at 19th (Sethu) and 20th (Shetty) out of 24 riders. While Sethu picked up places to finish the race in the top 13, scoring his first 3 points of the season, Shetty had a DNF, owing to a nasty crash. The second race wasn’t any better either – Sethu finished the race at 16th place, while Shetty, who was still recovering from his injury in race 1, could only manage to finish 19th. As for the winners, race 1 saw Rheza Danica Ahrens of Astra Honda Racing take the top spot, followed by his teammate Mario Suryo Aji and Reynaldo Chrisantho (Onexox TKK Yamaha). In the second race, Rheza was unlucky and crashed. The battle for the win, however, was an intense affair still. In the end, it was Rafid Topan Sucipto of Yamalube KYT team who emerged as the winner. Completing the podium was Andy Muhammad Fadly (Manual Tech KYT Kawasaki Racing) and Anupab Sarmoon (Yamaha Thailand Racing Team).
Double delight
While the AP250 left Honda India’s racing team wanting more, the SS600 turned out to be somewhat of an overwhelming affair. That’s because Hada scored a double podium finish in the team’s home round in Chennai. Hada’s double-podium wasn’t a stroke of luck by any means though. On day one, he qualified sixth, but against all the odds, he made a cracking start and led the first race for 10 laps, ahead of title favourite and pole-man Anthony West. For those in the know, keeping someone like West at bay isn’t an easy job, especially on the day when he set the circuit record in qualifying practice – 1:40.585! For ten laps though, Hada held station at the front. However, at the same time, one could sense that West was gaining ground quickly. As expected, in the closing laps, he took the lead back and won the race, while Hada lost another place to Md Zaqhwan Zaidi and finished in the third spot. Despite losing two spots though, it was quite an achievement for Hada still, for he took his and team’s first-ever podium of the series. Hada carried forward his momentum in the second race and had a blistering launch from P6 to P2. West, however, led the race from the very beginning and checked out from the rest of the field in a couple of laps. He comfortably cruised to victory with a gap of 7 seconds! Behind him, Tomoyoshi Koyoma (Musashi Boon Siew Honda) and Hada battled it out for the second place, and it was the former who got the better of the latter. That said, with a double-podium finish in Chennai, Tada and Idemistu Honda India Racing couldn’t have asked for more. They were certainly feeling over the top after the home round, and deservedly so.
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