Rahil Pillarisetty sizzles for pole position in open class

Chennai: On another hot and humid day, riders scorched the Madras International Circuit here on Friday. Hyderabad’s Rahil Pillarisetty (RACR Castrol Power1) qualified for pole position in the premier Super Sport 301-400cc Open class as the second round of the MRF Indian National Racing Challenge 2W – 2026 commenced here. The 28-year-old Rahil put in a hot lap of one minute, 48.806 seconds for pole position ahead of Chennai teenager Rakshith Dave (Petronas TVS Racing) and Bengaluru’s Savion Sabu (Mad Rabbit Racing).

Rahil’s two arch-rivals, Sarthak Chavan (Pune), who is on a flight back from Europe, and Chiranth Vishwanath (Bengaluru), missed both practice and qualifying sessions. The Petronas TVS Racing team pair is expected to reach Chennai tomorrow, in time for the race which they will start from the back of the grid.

The others to qualify for pole position in their respective classes were KK Anandhu (Veedol C2 Racing) from Chennai in Stock 301-400cc Novice; R Hari Haran (RACR Castrol Power1) from Coimbatore in Stock 165cc Novice; Venkatesan Iyyappan (M3 Torque Motorsports) from Chennai in Pro-Stock 200cc.

Petronas TVS Racing One-Make Championship

Chennai’s Kamal Navas snatched the pole position in the Expert (Apache RR310) class followed by Bengaluru’s AS James. Completing the front row was another Chennai rider, Manoj Yesuadian.

Brimming with confidence following her win in last month’s Round-1, young Poojita Anil Kumar from Bengaluru qualified for pole position in the Women class (Apache RTR 200). Hyderabad’s Hannah Akkineni Joshitha will start from P2 followed by Dhrishya Nair from Bengaluru.

The results (Qualifying – top 3 best laps):

Super Sport 301-400cc Open: 1. Rahil Pillarisetty (Hyderabad, RACR Castrol Power1) (01min, 48.806secs); 2. Rakshith Dave (Chennai, Petronas TVS Racing) (01:49.071); 3. Savion Sabu (Bengaluru, Mad Rabbit Racing) (01:50.162).

Pro-Stock 200cc Open: 1. Venkatesan Iyyappan (Chennai, M3 Torque Motorsports) (01:56.070); 2. Mohamed Mikail (Thiruvallur, Team MRA) (01:56.562); 3. Raj Kumar (Coimbatore, M3 Torque Motorsports) (01:56.826).

Stock 301-400cc Novice: 1. Anandhu KK (Chennai, Veedol C2 Raing) (02:02.528); 2. Kavicholaiarasan (Pvt., Tiruchirapalli) (02:02.539); 3. Rehbar Islam Baktoo (Srinagar, Motul Gusto Racing) (02:02.586).

Stock 165cc Novice: 1. R Hari Haran (Coimbatore, RACR Castrol Power1) (02:09.210); 2. Yashwant Varma (Visakhapatnam, Motul Sparks Racing) (02:09.452); 3. Farouk Ali Sohtun (East Khasi, Motul Sparks Racing) (02:09.955).

Expert (Apache RR 310): 1. Kamal Navas (Chennai) (01:54.962); 2. AS James (Bengaluru) (01:55.778); 3. Manoj Yesuadian (Chennai) (01:56.008).

Women (Apache RTR 200): 1. Poojitha Anil Kumar (Bengaluru) (02:14.923); 2. Hannah Akkineni Joshitha (Hyderabad) (02:16.301); 3. Drishya Nair (Pune) (02:16.939).