2W National Racing Championship: Sarthak Chavan bounces back with a brilliant win

CHENNAI: A set of new tyres and supreme effort helped Pune teenager Sarthak Chavan (Petronas TVS Racing) to snatch a brilliant win in the premier Pro-Stock 301-400cc category to finish the third round of the MRF MMSC FMSCI Indian National Motorcycle Racing Championship 2025 on a successful note at the Madras International Circuit here on Sunday.

The third win of the season took Sarthak within nine points of Saturday’s Race-1 winner, Rahil Pillarisetty (RACR Castrol Power1) who, recovering from an off-track incursion following a contact with another rider, 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 Super Stock 165cc Intermediate category while 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 win to make amends for a poor qualifying (11th) and Race-1 (9th) due to issues with his machine which was worked on overnight to ready it for today’s race.

The highlight of the day’s proceedings was the Pro-Stock 301-400cc Open race that developed into a straight fight between championship leader Rahil Pillarisetty from Hyderabad on a Yamaha R3 and Sarthak astride 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 Sunday’s race, Sarthak displayed impressive pace which helped him to make positions after dropping to fourth despite a good start that had put him in the lead.