2018 a good year for Honda Racing; Nagaraj

: The year (2018) has been a good one for Honda Racing and the team is looking to forward to put more riders in international events and help them gain experience, a top official said.

Honda's talent identification programme has helped unearth exiciting riders, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India's vice-president of brand and communications, Prabhu Nagaraj said, adding the plan was to put them in circuits in Asia and the experience will help them grow.

Honda Ten10 Racing's Anish Shetty secured the national title in the Pro Stock 165cc category of the MRF MMSC National Motorcycle Championship at the MMRT track at Sriperumbudur a few days ago.

Also, the team's riders Mathana Kumar and Rajiv Sethu finished on the podium in Super Sport 165cc category in the final round of the championship.

Shetty and Sethu participated in the Asia Road Racing Championship this season and gained a lot of experience, he said.

Nagaraj said it was a good way to finish what has been a fruitful year and added that the future looked promising.

"The year 2018 has seen Honda's talent identification programme put some young riders on the international map with their performances at the Asian level suggesting a promising future ahead," he added.

He said the season had been good for Honda riders, both in domestic and international events and added that they were looking to improve next year.

"This season has been excellent for us both in domestic and international events. We started the Honda Talent Hunt and identified several young riders. They will get to participate in events with the best in Asia next year and that experience will help them grow.

He said the talent hunt has gone well so far, adding that the performances of Sethu and Anish Shetty, who trained at the Honda academy, were encourging.

"The roadmap is there.We have a plan to send the selected riders to to races and also make sure they develop. The talent hunt has gone well. We are confident that the activity we started is going in the right direction. We even have kids as young as seven or eight at our academy," he added.

About the plans for next year, Nagaraj said the Indian team will continue on the Asian circuit and that will help the riders gain experience.

"Indian teams will continue to take part in the Asian circuit and it will help them gain experience. The young riders will thereby stand to benefit. There will also be teams in Moto-2 and Moto-3," he added.