Gill leads first round of National Rally Championship
By IANSFriday, June 25, 2010
NASHIK - Reigning national champion Gaurav Gill of Team MRF took a comfortable one minute, 33.6 seconds lead over arch-rival Vikram Mathias of Red Rooster Racing at the end of Leg 1 of the Rally of Maharashtra, the first round of the 2010 Speed-Indian National Rally Championship, here Friday.
With the rains staying away and the route drying up for most part, barring a few patches of slippery and slushy sections that caught out the unwary, Gill (co-driver Musa Sherif) dominated the day’s proceedings, clocking the fastest in five of the six special stages.
With only three more stages to be held Saturady, followed by the Spectator Special Stage Sunday morning, Gill, driving a Mitsubishi Cedia N+ (modified), has all but sealed the overall and also the class titles.
Trailing Mathias (co-driver PVS Murthy) by four seconds was team-mate Amittrajit Ghosh (co-driver Ashwin Naik) who in turn was ahead of fourth placed Lohith Urs (co-driver Srikanth Gowda) of Team MRF by over a minute.
Girijashankar Joshy (co-driver Chandramouli M) of Team Ovion came up with an impressive drive in the 2000cc Group N class to take a 33-second lead over team-mate Sujay Suresh (co-driver Varun Satyanarayan).
Meanwhile, Red Rooster’s gamble of roping in six-time champion V.R. Naren Kumar (co-driver D Ram Kumar) misfired badly as the Coimbatore pair, back together after a four-year break from the INRC, was way off the pace to finish the day 24th among the 26 finishers, after suffering onboard intercom and brake failures besides gearbox problems.
Gill, going out first and sweeping the route, did not have any such hassle, and although he tempered his usually aggressive driving with a degree of caution, the 29-year old from Delhi still outpaced his rivals.
“I had a fairly trouble-free run today, except in the fifth stage where we lost a second or so to Mathias because of rocks in the middle of the road. I had to put two wheels off the track. Overall, it was a good outing and I made the correct tyre choice too. Tomorrow, I will be conservative in my approach, but definitely there is no question of easing off,” Gill told IANS.
In contrast, Mathias had his hands full with gearbox issues. “I was stuck in fourth gear in the very first Stage, and we made some changes, but it was an up-and-down run today. We will go for leg points tomorrow,” said the 2008 champion.
Meanwhile, veteran Rahul Kanthraj (co-driver Vivek Bhatt) from Bangalore led the field in the 1600cc class, enjoying a three-minute lead over Chikmagalur’s Shailendra Hegde (co-driver Sheraz Ahmed).
Young Phalguna V Urs (co-driver Anoop Kumar) from Mysore topped the Rally Star Cup class with a 37-second cushion against M Venkatapathy (co-driver Santosh).
Army entry Amarinder Brar (co-driver Himanshu Pareek) was the quickest in the Gypsy class, sparing over three minutes to Sachin Singh (co-driver Adhiraj Bardhan).
Among the notable non-finishers were MRF’s Arjun Balu (co-driver BS Sujith Kumar) whose Cedia (Group N+) got stuck in the slush in the third Stage and Red Rooster’s Karna Kadur (co-driver Somonita Ghosh) who rolled his Cedia (Group N) in the very first Stage.
Unofficial Leg-1 classification (top 3):
Overall/2000cc (Group N+): Gaurav Gill/Musa Sherif (MRF) 1 (54mins, 22.9secs); Vikram Mathias/PVS Murthy (Red Rooster Racing) 2 (55:56.5); Amittrajit Ghosh/Ashwin Naik (Red Rooster Racing) 3 (56:00.8).
2000cc (Group N): Girijashankar Joshy/Chandramouli M (Ovion Racing) 1 (58:28.3); Sujay Suresh/Varun Satyanarayan (Ovion Racing) 2 (59:02.1); Sirish Chandran/Nikhil Pai (Pvt) 3 (1:02:46.1).
1600cc: Rahul Kanthraj/Vivek Bhatt (Pvt) 1 (1:02:41.9); Shailendra Hegde/Sheraz Ahmed (Pvt) 2 (1:05:44.3).
1400cc: Dr Bikku Babu/George Verghese (Pvt) 1 (1:03:28.4); Byram Godrej/Anjay Kapadia (Pvt) 2 (1:03.51.8); Monish/Jeeva (Pvt) 3 (1:10:14.6).
Gypsy: Amarinder Brar/Himanshu Pareek (Army) 1 (1:03.13.7); Sachin Singh/Adhiraj Bardhan (Pvt) 2 (1:06.38.3); Shakti Bajaj/Dharmesh Sinha (Army) 3 (1:07.45.6).
Rally Star Cup: Phalguna V Urs/Anoop Kumar (Pvt) 1 (1:03.59.8); Venkatapathy M/Santosh Kumar Selvaraj (Pvt) 2 (1:04.36.9); VS Rathan/Preetam (Pvt) 3 (1:06:05.9).
