Chennai, Sep. 24 (IANS): Rider Yuki Ito from Japan came up with a mature ride to snatch a fine win in the premier SuperSports 600cc class as the fifth round of the Asia Road Racing Championship, hosted by the Madras Motor Sports Club, concluded at the MMRT track here on Sunday.
After chasing front-runner Md Zaqhwan Zaidi (Malaysia, Honda) — winner of the first race on Saturday — for much of the 14 laps, Ito, astride a Yamaha, finally made his move in the 12th to ease into the lead and never looked back. Zaidi hung on to his second place while Japan’s Taiga Hada (Honda) finished third.
Championship leader Malaysian Azlan Shah Kamaruzaman’s wretched weekend after his high-side crash during Friday’s practice session, continued as he ended the race in 12th spot. More significantly, he slipped to fourth in the championship while Zaidi jumped to top spot, followed by Hada and Ito, who are tied on points.
India’s Shankar Sarath Kumar (Honda), though putting in an improved performance in terms of lap time, finished 13th.
Earlier, Indonesian Galang Hendra Pratama (Yamaha) hung on grimly to his lead to win the Asia Production 250cc race ahead of two Japanese, Saturday’s first race winner Tomoyoshi Koyama (Honda) and Takehiro Yamamoto (Honda).
The race, declared “wet” following showers, was hard-fought and the track conditions were quite treacherous, but Pratama, after getting ahead of the field, controlled the pace to score a comfortable victory.
The lone Indian entry in this category, Rajiv Sethu, retired after five laps following a crash that followed an off-track excursion in slippery conditions.
For the second day running, Malaysians occupied all the three podium spots in the Underbone 150cc class with Azroy Hakeem Anuar holding off Md Akid Aziz and Md Haziq Md Fairues with less than a second separating the trio.
In the two MMSC One-Make Championship support races, which were of academic interest since the titles were already sealed, Ranchi’s Amit Richard Topno topped the Honda CBR 250 (Open) category while Sivanesan S took the honours in the TVS Apache 200 (Open) race.
