Rajiv Triumphs in 2017
Our coverage of the final round of this year’s Honda One Make Race Championship
The FIFth anD FInal roUnD oF the honda one make race Championship was held in Chennai across two weekends, with the open Class races being held alongside the asia road racing Championship from the 15th to the 17th of september, while the novice Class races were scheduled for the next weekend. Unfortunately, heavy rain on the morning of the 24th saw the second novice Class race being cancelled, so we only had one race in this class. on to the races.
Open Class RACE ONE
the first CBr250r race of the weekend saw championship leader, honda ten10 racing’s rajiv sethu, slip into fifth place, while Chennai’s Deepak ravikumar rode a flawless race. he set the best lap (2:01.327) on the very last lap and claimed victory. anish shetty of hubli, riding for the ten10 racing academy, had to battle hard with honda ten10 racing’s hari Krishnan and ranchi’s amit richard topno, but was able to secure the second spot on the podium, while Chennai’s hari managed to finish third, less than two-tenths of a second ahead of amit at the line. although he finished in fifth place, rajiv has been riding very consistently throughout the year and the 10 points he earned from this race give him a grand total of 179 points. this puts him 26 points ahead of hari, sealing the championship with one race yet to be run.
RACE TWO
having already clinched the honda one make open Class Championship title, rajiv sethu decided to sit the second race of the weekend out. we did get to witness a 10-lap battle for the top spot between amit richard topno, hari Krishanan, and Deepak ravikumar as the three traded places throughout as they all tried for the win. at the finish line it was extremely close with amit taking the top spot, closely followed by hari and Deepak for second and third places respectively. although the championship had already been decided in the last race, this did not stop these three racers from fighting tooth and nail for the victory, and less than half a second separated them at the finish.
the final standings for the open Class of the 2017 honda one make race Championship are rajiv sethu in first place with 179 points, hari Krishnan in second place with 163 points and anish shetty in third with 116 points. Novice Class with the CBr150r novice Class Championship hanging in the balance, we witnessed quite a battle on saturday among championship leader satya narayana raju from hyderabad, Chennai’s amala Jerald, and Kerala’s Vysakh sobhan. the race was too close to call right down to the finish line, with amala crossing first, just ahead of Vysakh. having won five out of nine races so far this year, satya already had quite a fine lead in the championship standings. he finished the race in third place, and earned 15 points to stretch out his tally to 177 and clinch the championship, 26 points ahead of amala’s 151 points. Vysakh wrapped up the championship with 101 points, earning third place in the standings.
with the top three positions in the novice Class of the 2017 honda one make race Championship already decided and rain delaying proceedings the next day, the last race of the season was scrapped as the final standings would not have changed no matter what the result. we now look forward to the 2018 racing season.