Chennai National Motorcycle: Jagan takes championship lead

With this win at the Madras Motor Race Track in Chennai, he took a six-point lead in his class in the fifth and final round of the MRF MMSC FMSCI Indian National Motorcycle Racing Championship. Sethu (Honda Ten10 Racing) and KY Ahamed (TVS Racing) finished second and third respectively.

Gusto Racing’s Amarnath Menon, from Kozhikode, bagged the title in the SuperSport Indian (300-400cc) class with a race in hand. However, on Saturday, Moto-Rev’s Deepak Ravi Kumar won Race 1, while Vivek Pillai (Team Rockers Racing) and Shreyas Sannake (Miraj) finished second and third respectively.

Hyderabad’s Sai Rahil Pillarishetty, racing in his first season, bagged the championship in the Novice (Stock, 165cc) class. The Sparks Racing rider finished third in the race, but won the title. Anup Kumar M (RACR) and Peddu Sri Harsha (Sparks Racing) were the top two finishers in the race.

Going into today’s race, Jagan trailed Rajiv Sethu (Honda Ten10 Racing) by one point and the victory took the former’s tally to 147.

Sethu, who had led briefly when Jagan ran wide in the third lap, finished second to concede lead in the championship standings.

“I am happy to win today. The bike felt good. I made a small mistake in the back ‘D’ when I ran wide and Sethu moved past me,” Jagan said.

“But I overtook Sethu soon after and in the last two laps, opened up a good lead,” added Jagan, who is seeking his third straight title.

For 18-year old Sethu, also from Chennai, it was so near yet so far. He did well to get to the front and even clocked the fastest lap of the race (1m57.964s), bettering his qualifying time (1m58.987s), but missed a gear at Turn 9 when on the attack in the penultimate lap and it allowed Jagan to open up a winning lead.

In the Pro-Stock category, seven points separate leader Aravind Balakrishnan (Honda Ten10 Racing) and Aravind Ganesh (Moto-Rev) after they finished sixth and fourth respectively. There is one more race to be run on Sunday.

S Sivanesan (Team Alisha Abdullah), Naresh Babu J (RACR) and Kannan Karnan (Rockers Racing) took the podium spots in that order.