The first round of the 2018 Pirelli Malaysia Superbike Championship, which was held at the 5.54km long Sepang International Circuit, concluded recently. Rajini Krishnan of Team RACR (Chennai) had a good run in the first round of the championship. While he finished in second position in the practice session, he took the third spot in the qualifying session astride his race prepped Kawasaki ZX-10R.
The rain gods made an appearance in the first round of the first race. This forced the stewards to declare it a wet race and the competitors had to shift to wet tyres. Rajini Krishnan astride his race prepped Yamaha R1 made maximum use of the wet conditions to grab the top spot. He also clocked the fastest lap time of 2:24:906 with an average speed of 135.59 kmph in the fifth lap of the race.
Rajini Krishnan had an early lead in the second race but soon made a wrong move which called for his decline to 18th position. He fought his way back in the order to finish the race in an impressive fifth position.
The first race saw Abhijith Prasad of Team RACR finish at fifth place. Teammate Ritesh Sapre finished in seventh place. Both were astride their race spec Yamaha R6. In the second race, Abhijith Prasad dropped down to ninth position while teammate Ritesh Sapre finished in 17th place overall.
In the Super 250 category, Vishwadev M from Team RACR finished the first race in eighth position. He was riding his race spec Kawasaki 250. In the second race he climbed up one spot to finish the race in seventh position. Round 2 of the 2018 Pirelli Malaysia Superbike Championship will commence on July 27 and end on July 29.
Stay tuned for more updates.