Key Points

The third win of the season took Sarthak within nine points of yesterday’s Race-1 winner, Rahil Pillarisetty (RACR Castrol Power1), who is recovering from an off-track incursion following contact with another rider. Rahil managed to finish second ahead of team-mate Rajini Krishnan.

Meanwhile, Md Samrul Zubair (Hyderabad, Motul Sparks Racing) scored his second win in four races in the Super Stock 165cc Intermediate category. Chennai’s Jagathishre Kumaresan (One Racing) completed a double in the Girls (Stock 165cc) class with a hard-fought win over former National champion Ann Jennifer (Motul Sparks Racing). Also achieving a double was Thiruvallur’s Mohamed Mikail (Mad Rabbit Racing), who made strong progress on the Stock 301-400cc (Novice) leaderboard.

Later, Bengaluru’s Savion Sabu (Mad Rabbit Racing) returned to winning ways in the Pro-Stock 200cc Open with a commanding victory, making amends for a poor qualifying (11th) and Race-1 (9th) due to machine issues that were fixed overnight.

Tirupati’s CS Kedarnadh survived a touch-and-go finish to secure his second win of the season in the Stock 165cc (Novice) class.

The highlight of the day’s proceedings was the Pro-Stock 301-400cc Open race, which developed into a straight fight between championship leader Rahil Pillarisetty from Hyderabad on a Yamaha R3 and Sarthak on the factory-supported TVS Apache RR 310. Through the season, the duo has produced a slugfest resulting in exciting finishes; after three rounds, both have won three races apiece. In today’s race, Sarthak displayed impressive pace, which helped him make up positions after dropping to fourth despite a good start that had put him in the lead. “Somehow, I lost position after a good start and early lead. I dropped to fourth and behind the three RACR riders, including Rahil, Rajini and Anish (Shetty). I managed to move past two of them and then made a good move on Rahil at Turn 4 on the last lap and rode a bit defensively before pushing a bit more. In yesterday’s race, I was having a lot of wheelspin on the rear tyre which I had used for qualifying. Today, we fitted new tyres which made a lot of difference,” said Sarthak, who last weekend scored his sixth consecutive podium in the Asia Road Racing Championship in Indonesia and is placed second in the TVS Asia championship.

Local challenger G Balaji held off fellow-Chennai rider and championship leader Mohan Babu P to notch his second win of the season in the Expert (Apache RR 310) category.

Coimbatore’s Hari Haran consolidated his top position on the points table in the Rookie (Apache RTR 200) category with a fourth win in six races. Bengaluru’s Joshua A finished some 19 seconds behind in P2, followed by Akarsh Jangam from Vijayawada.

Sarthak Chavan extended his unbeaten run in the TVS Electric RTE category by posting his third successive win while his arch-rival Chiranth Vishwanath from Bengaluru finished second as in the previous races; Thiruvallur’s Mohamed Mikail came in third.

Raivat Dhar from Jammu pulled off a fine win, his second of the season in the Honda CB 300F category, making himself a strong candidate for the championship in this class. Finishing second was Solomon R from Chennai, who consolidated his position at the top of the leaderboard, while Tumakuru’s Tejash BA was third.

- IANS