2018 ARRC Round 5: IDEMITSU Honda Climbs Up The Leaderboard

The fifth round of the Asia Road Racing Championship at Sentul International Circuit, Indonesia had Honda competing with its newly formed, first Indian team ‘IDEMITSU Honda Racing’. Rajiv Sethu and Anish Shetty represented the team in the 250cc division, while Taiga Hada carried the baton in the SuperSport 600cc class. The second round of races were very closely contested in both SuperSport 600 and Asia Production 250 class with the Indonesian riders coming out on top.

But, that’s not to say the Indian riders didn’t put up a good show. The first race had the duo clock their respective fastest laps. However, they couldn’t score any points for the team. Anish who started out back at 27th spot climbed two ranks and finished in the top 25. Meanwhile, Rajiv who had advanced to 15th, finished the race at 23rd due to contact with another rider. It’s worth mentioning that Rajiv Sethu put up an impressive performance despite having a broken rib from the qualifiers.

Race 2 saw both the riders, Rajiv and Anish, climb two and one positions respectively. Both of them surpassed their previous best lap times and clocked their respective fastest lap times of 1:45:166 and 1:47:552. Rajiv started the second race quite well and jumped to 16th position, but a technical glitch made him finish 21st. On the other hand, Anish finished at the 24th spot. Notably, post the Indonesian round, the IDEMITSU Honda Racing team climbed up to the 15th spot among 23 teams in the AP 250 class.

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On the other hand, 20-year-old Taiga Hada qualified ninth on the grid in the SS 600 class. The first race was quite intense with Hada battling for third spot. However, he eventually dropped 3 positions and finished in 6th. With this, he won 10 points for the solo Indian team on day one and also managed to set his fastest lap of 1:31: 025.

It was a different story altogether in the second race for Hada. The suspension setting on his bike after warm-up wasn't as per his liking, which ultimately made him change his strategy to hold onto his position rather than trying to go for the win. He managed to clinch the 10th spot with a lap time of 1:31:025 and earned 6 points for the team. His total tally stood at 16 points for IDEMITSU Honda Racing in the Indonesia round. Hada’s performance now puts him in 9th position out of 31 competitors in the 600cc segment while his individual points tally stands at 72 points for this season so far.