Chennai, Oct 3 (IANS) Sarthak Chavan, the 18-year-old from Pune and Petronas TVS Racing team’s spearhead, shrugged off a crash in the free practice session this morning, to snatch the pole position a few hours later by topping the qualifying session in the premier Pro-Stock 301-400cc Open category as the fourth round of the MMSC fmsci Indian National Motorcycle Racing Championship 2025 commenced at the Madras International Circuit, here on Friday.

Sarthak, who crashed during the morning’s practice session when he was 1.1 seconds off the pace, put in a near-flawless hot lap in the qualifying, clocking 01 minute, 48.047 secs around the 3.712 Kms circuit to warm up for the battle ahead with the championship leader from Hyderabad, 27-year-old Rahil Pillarisetty (RACR Castrol Power1), who took P2 (01:48.084). Rahil leads Sarthak by nine points on the leaderboard.

Completing the front row of the grid for Saturday’s Race-1 was 17-year-old from Chennai, Rakshith Dave (01:49.575), also from Petronas TVS Racing, who showed impressive pace to outqualify fancied and experienced riders.

Meanwhile, the 29-year-old businessman from Bengaluru, Jagadeesh Nagaraj (Motul Sparks Racing), clinched his maiden National Championship pole position in the Stock 301-400cc (Novice) category ahead of some championship front-runners, while two Thiruvallur riders, Mohamed Mikail (Mad Rabbit Racing) and Shyam Sundar (KYT Helmet ISBK Racing), qualified for P2 and P3, respectively.

The other pole position qualifiers in the National championship categories were Rajender Beedani (MAI Racing) from Hyderabad in Stock 165cc (Novice) and Chennai’s Kamal Navas (Rockers Racing) in Super Stock Intermediate 165cc.

Petronas TVS One-Make Championship: Ajay Xavier from Nagercoil, who is placed at the lower end of the leaderboard, qualified for the pole position in the Expert (Apache RR 310) category. Later, Chennai’s Elakiya Ravi took P1 in the Women’s segment ahead of SP Shuria (Trichy) and championship leader Jagathishree Kumaresan (Chennai).

Idemitsu Honda India Talent Cup (Honda CB 300F): Chennai’s Solomon R, who heads the points table in the Honda CB 300F category, grabbed pole position with Raivat Dhar (Jammu) and Tejash BA (Tumakuru) filling up the front row of the grid with less than a second separating the trio.

–IANS

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