Team MRF lead first leg of Coimbatore rally

COIMBATORE - On a day of dramatic turnarounds and retirements, Arjun Rao Aroor (co-driver Satish Rajagopal) of Team MRF, driving a Mitsubishi Cedia (N+ class) emerged overall leader at the end of the first leg of the Rally of Coimbatore, the first round of the Speed-Indian National Rally Championship, here Saturday.

Trailing Amittrajit Ghosh (co-driver Ashwin Naik) of Red Rooster Racing by over seven minutes going into the last of the eight special stages, Aroor finished in front with six seconds to spare with the former suffering a puncture and then losing more time following a slower car.

Meanwhile, the day witnessed many retirements with cars breaking down due to rough terrain that took a heavy toll on the transmission and the gear box.

Surviving the difficult phase and heading their respective classes were Sandeep Sharma (co-driver Arjun Chopra - Maruti Gypsy), Karna Kadur (co-driver Somonitha Ghosh - Rally Star Cup) and Sujay S (co-driver Varun S - 1600cc).

The organizers were still to release the full results despite using electronic timing equipment.

The terrain evoked critical response from almost all the competitors who felt that the stages were far too rough and under the circumstances, there were few eyebrows raised when over 30 of the 61 vehicles that were flagged off this morning retired.

Much of the focus was on the Cedia class where MRF and Red Rooster Racing were expected to be involved in a toe-to-toe fight, but at the end of the eight stages, both teams suffered casualties.

MRF lost Lohit Urs (co-driver M Chandramouli) and fancied Gaurav Gill (co-driver Musa Sherif) due to mechanical problems while Red Roosters National champion Vikram Mathias (co-driver Srinivasa Murthy) packed up with a steering column problem.

The story of the day was the retirement of Gill who was expected to walk away with the honours, but a blown engine in the very first special stage dashed his hopes.

However, MRF enjoyed some luck when Aroor found himself in front despite being in a slower Cedia compared to Ghosh who is expected to make up the deficit on the morrow when the remaining two special stages would be run before the event concludes with a Spectator special stage.