The fifth round of the Asia Road Racing Championship (ARRC) concluded yesterday at the Sentul International circuit in Indonesia. It was a close contest in both SuperSport 600 and Asia Production 250 classes while riders from team IDEMITSU Honda Racing India recorded their best lap times.
IDEMITSU Honda Racing India’s 20 year old rider Taigu Hada qualified 9th on the grid. Initially he wasn’t confident while entering the grid but with no time remaining he changed his race strategy and in race two, finished 10th by clocking a lap time of 01:31:025 (mm/ss/ms) and earning another six points for the team. In the championship points tally, Hada is now ranked seventh out of the 31 contenders in the 600 cc class while Honda’s solo Indian team has scored 72 points in the season so far.
Even though Indonesian drivers continued to dominate this class, the Indian duo of Rajiv Sethu and Anish Shetty from team IDEMITSU Honda Racing India displayed a good performance as well. Not only did they record their fastest laps, but also gained two and three positions respectively, in the race two.
Starting 23rd, Rajiv climbed to 16th spot, after which a technical glitch in his bike pushed back to 21st position. He registered his best ever lap time of 01:45:166 in the Sentul circuit. On the other hand Anish started 27th and gained three positions in the first corner itself. Later on it was a tough battle betwee Anish, Japan’s Suzuki Takashi and Malaysia’s Muhammad Idil Mahadi for the 23rd spot. However Anish finished 24th and recorded his fastest lap with a time of 01:47:552 in yesterdays race two.
On his team’s performance at the ARRC 2018, Mr. Prabhu Nagaraj, Team Principal – IDEMITSU Honda Racing India & VP – Brand & Communication, HMSI Pvt. Ltd. said, “It’s been a learning round for us. Thanks to our boys, the solo Indian team at ARRC has won another 16 points in Indonesia. In SuperSports 600, Hada is consistently performing. In today’s AP250 race too, both Rajiv and Anish clocked their fastest ever lap times and continued to gain upto 3 positions. What’s encouraging is that despite the intense home competition in Indonesia, our boys are improving every stint on the track. Now, with Rajiv getting exposure in Thailand track before the ARRC round and Anish too working on his focus areas with team, we now move to Thailand with full energy”.
Find below the detailed results:
| Team | Rider | Country | Age | Category | QP result | RACE 2 result |
| ‘IDEMITSU Honda Racing India’ by T Pro Ten10 | Sethu Rajiv | India | 20 | Asia Production 250cc | 23 | 21 |
| Anish Shetty | India | 24 | 27 | 24 |