Thaindian News

Nashik, June 4 (IANS) Team MRF was poised for a 1-2 finish in the Rally of Maharashtra, the first round of the Speed Indian National Rally Championship, as the country’s top driver Gaurav Gill (co-driver Musa Sherif) led the overall time charts with a lead of six minutes over team-mate Lohitt V Urs (PVS Murthy) here Saturday.

Driving a modified Mitsubishi Cedia in the top-end 2000cc (Group N+) class, Gill blitzed through the six Special Stages in a time of 53 minutes, 57 seconds, even as team-mates Amittrajit Ghosh (Ashwin Naik) and Arjun Balu (Sujith Kumar) retired due to mechanical problems.

“We had a good run today. I made a lot of time early on and then towards the end, when I realised we had a good lead, I eased off a bit.

“My APRC (Asia Pacific Rally Championship) experience is also helping me. I am much quicker now and more importantly, consistent,” said Gill who is currently second in the APRC series where he drives the more powerful four-wheel drive Mitsubishi Evo-10.

Urs, the highly under-rated driver from Mysore, put in a good performance despite engine problems and coming across cattle on the Stages to be placed second clocking one hour, 36 seconds.

“There was not much we could do because of the engine problem. It wasn’t revving enough and we were down on power. I will concentrate on finishing the Rally tomorrow and keep my position,” said Urs.

The Rally concludes Sunday when the three Stages that were run twice Saturday would be repeated once.

The fifth entry in the 2000cc N+ class, Arjun Rao Aroor (Satish Rajagopal) also dropped out with a power-steering problem.

In overall third and topping the 2000cc Group N (unmodified) class, was Sirish Chandran (Nikhil Pai) in a Cedia prepared by the Red Rooster Performance and in only his second season.

“The car was brilliant. We made time in the first three Stages today and after opening up a big lead, we eased off. Also, on the third stage today, we came across stones on the road and that was a bit unnerving,” said Chandran, who enjoyed a lead of more than two minutes over second placed Shailendra Hegde (Prajval Pai).

Down the field, Anirudha Ranganekar (Anjay Kapadia) led Vignesh Devarajan (Mukesh Raja) by some 22 minutes in the 1600cc class while Raghu Nandan (Sujay Prasad) in the Star Cup (1400cc) and Sachin Singh (Ramesh Venu) in the Gypsy Cup looked certain to take the honours in their respective categories.

The results (provisional):

Overall / 2000cc Group N+: Gaurav Gill / Musa Sherif (Team MRF) 1 (53mins, 57.0secs); Lohitt V Urs / PSV Murthy (MRF) 2 (1hr, 36secs).

2000cc (Group N): Sirish Chandran / Nikhil Pai 1 (1:00:58.0); Shailender Hegde / Prajval Pai 2 (1:03:23.0); Rahul Kanthraj / Vivek Bhatt 3 (1:04:02).

1600cc: Anirudha Ranganekar / Anjay Kapadia 1 (1:07:49.0); Vignesh Devarajan / Mukesh Raja 2 (1:30:12.0).

Star Cup (1400cc): Raghu Nandan B / Sujay Prasad 1 (1:04:52.0); Deepak Chetty / Uday Kumar D 2 (1:06:15.0); Hrishikesh Thakersey / Kaushik H Shinde 3 (1:09:00.0).

Gypsy Class (T2 - Modified): Sanjay Agarwal / Jeeva Rathinam 1 (1:06:28.0). T1 (unmodified): Sachin Singh / Ramesh Venu 1 (1:07:23.0); Ranjiv Sally / Faruk Patel 2 (1:10:24.0); Amit Kulkarni / Pradeep Mhaskar 3 (1:12:18.0).