Race report

Asia Road Racing Championship Buriram

Thailand ARRC: Sethu qualifies seventh but crashes

Honda Racing India rider Rajiv Sethu qualified a career-best seventh for the opening race of the Thailand Asia Road Racing Championship round, but two separate incidents left him a lowly 22nd in the final classifications

Rachit Thukral

Edited: Oct 24, 2019, 5:54 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Rajiv Sethu, Honda Racing India

Sethu showed a massive upturn in performance after practice to qualify on the third row of the grid, just 0.768s adrift of the pole-sitter astride his Honda CBR250 RR.

However, his hard work was undone when he got bogged down at the start, his bike suffering a massive twitch as it left its grid spot.

That left Sethu plummeting down the order to 21st, leaving him with a mountain to climb in the 10-lap race.

However, slowly but steadily he started clawing his way up the pack, reaching 10th position at the start of the final lap.

Unfortunately, while trying to catch a slipstream, Sethu crashed at turn 3 after suffering a massive high-side. He was able to remount on the bike immediately, but could only cross the line in 22nd place.

“After my best ever qualifier finish, I was charged up for Race 1,” Sethu said. “But I missed a good start and got held back in the chasing bunch.

“However, I made a steady recovery and by the last lap returned to Top 10. I pushed harder but crashed. My aim then was to just finish the race. I’m sad to not meet my target but I learnt a lot. Tomorrow, my aim is to finish in top 10.”

ARRC rookie and Sethu’s teammate Senthil Kumar had a less eventual race, qualifying 20th and finishing 18th.

“I started strong but after early impact with another rider, I lost my bunch in turn 5 of lap 1,” he said.

“Thereafter, I rode the next 7 laps alone with focus on correcting my mistakes. My target for tomorrow is to correct my mistakes and challenge for a Top 15 finish.”

Mr. Prabhu Nagaraj, Vice President – Brand and Communications, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India Pvt. Ltd added: “After a great start, we were confident of achieving our target today.

“I’m happy that the rider and machine are competing in the top lot now with Rajiv achieving his best ever 7th spot in qualifying.

“Surely, we missed a great opportunity. Rajiv’s fighting spirit stood out and led to his recovery back to Top 10 until the crash in last lap.”

The Thailand ARRC round continues on Sunday, with the second Asia Production 250cc race taking place in the afternoon.

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Ty Dillon has plenty of ideas and NASCAR would do well to listen

Next article STARD to supply powertrains for electric World RX support series

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Kyle Larson, Cliff Daniels and the Hendrick 5 are who we say they are

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Homestead-Miami

59 min

Kyle Larson, Cliff Daniels and the Hendrick 5 are who we say they are

Final NASCAR Cup points standings after 2026 Homestead finale

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Homestead-Miami

5 h

Final NASCAR Cup points standings after 2026 Homestead finale

Official race results: NASCAR Cup Homestead season finale

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Homestead-Miami

5 h

Official race results: NASCAR Cup Homestead season finale

Ryan Blaney wins Homestead NASCAR Cup finale as Kyle Larson claims 2026 title

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Homestead-Miami

5 h

Ryan Blaney wins Homestead NASCAR Cup finale as Kyle Larson claims 2026 title

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts