Japan's Ito shines in Asian Racing meet

: Japan's Yuki Ito registered an impressive win in the premier SuperSports 600cc class in the fifth round of the Asia Road Racing Championship at MMRT track in Sriperumbudur near here today.
After chasing front-runner Malaysia's Md Zaqhwan Zaidi (Honda), winner of the first race on Saturday, for much of the race, Ito, astride a Yamaha, finally made his move in the 12th to ease into the lead and never looked back. Zaidi hung on to his second place while Japans Taiga Hada (Honda) finished third.
Championship leader Malaysian Azlan Shah Kamaruzaman's wretched weekend after his crash during Friday's practice session, continued as he ended the race in 12th.

Significantly, he slipped to fourth in the championship standings while Zaidi jumped to top spot, followed by Hada and Ito, who are tied on points.
India's Shankar Sarath Kumar of Team RAMA Honda by NTS T.Pro Ten 10, put in an improved performance in terms of lap time and managed a 13th place finish.
Earlier, Indonesia's Galang Hendra Pratama (Yamaha) hung on grimly to his lead to win the Asia Production 250cc race ahead of two Japanese - Tomoyoshi Koyama (Honda) and Takehiro Yamamoto (Honda).

The race, declared 'wet' following showers, was hard-fought and the track conditions were quite treacherous, but Pratama, after getting ahead of the field, controlled the pace to score a comfortable victory.

The lone Indian entry in this category, Rajiv Sethu of Team Honda, retired after five laps following a crash that followed an off-track excursion in slippery conditions.
For the second day running, Malaysians occupied all the three podium spots in the Underbone 150cc class with Azroy Hakeem Anuar holding off Md Akid Aziz and Md Haziq Md Fairues with less than a second separating the trio.
In the two MMSC One-Make Championship support races, Ranchi's Amit Richard Topno topped the Honda CBR 250 (Open) category while Sivanesan S took the honours in the TVS Apache 200 (Open) race.
Results (Provisional): SuperSports 600cc Race 2 (14 Laps): 1. Yuki Ito (Japan, Yamaha) (23:55.967); 2. Md Zaqhwan Zaidi (Malaysia, Honda) (23:56.832); 3. Taiga Hada (Japan, Honda) (24:04.372).

Asia Production 250cc Race 2 (10 Laps wet race): 1. Galang Hendra Pratama (Indonesia, Yamaha) (19:47.359); 2. Tomoyoshi Koyama (Japan, Honda) (19:48.264); 3. Takehiro Yamamoto (Honda, Japan) (19:56.097).
Underbone 150cc Race 2 (7 Laps): 1. Azroy Hakeem Anuar (Malaysia, Honda) (13:29.043); 2. Md Akid Aziz (Malaysia, Yamaha) (13:29.175); 3. Md Haziq Md Fairues (Malaysia, Yamaha) (13:29.598).
Support Races (MMSC One-Make Championship): Honda CBR 250 (Open) Race 2 (10 Laps): 1. Amit Richard Topno (Ranchi) (20:29.001); 2. Hari Krishnan Rajagopal (Chennai) (20:29.301); 3. Deepak Ravikumar (Chennai) (20:29.327).
TVS Apache 200 (Open) Race 2 (10 Laps): 1. Sivanesan (Chennai) (22:10.020); 2. Arun Muthukrishnan (Chennai) (22:10.448); 3. Yashas RL (Bengaluru) (22:10.455).