Rallyist Gill takes round one of MRF national championship

COIMBATORE: Two-time APRC champion Gaurav

Gill

began his MRF FMSCI

Indian national rally

championship 2017 on a dominant note, winning round 1 with ease in the city on Sunday.

The 35-year-oldrallyist and co-driver Musa Sherif, who were fourth off the blocks, stormed into the lead in the first stage itself. Gill tackled the gravel road with all its twists and turns in his typical aggressive way to round it up in just 12 minutes and 11 seconds, a full 21 seconds ahead of the 24-car field.

Driving for Team Mahindra in an XUV 500, Delhi-based Gill showed his class in the remaining four stages too, sweeping each of them in style. He kept increasing his lead by a minimum of 20 seconds in each stage to finish the 70-odd kilometrein one hourand 36 seconds.

Defending INRC champion Karna Kadur and Nikhil Pai (Red Rooster Performance) from Bengaluru finished a minute 45 seconds behind to take the second position while Amittrajit Ghosh and Ashwin Naik (Team Mahindra Adventure) were further adrift by 28 seconds to grab the third place.

Karna managed great speed in his Polo but could not match Gill’s pyrotechnics. He, however, stayed ahead of the pack in the INRC 2 category. Rahul Kanthraj and Vivek Bhatt who finished overall fifth took the second position, cruising 3 seconds later.

Dean Mascarenhas and Shruptha Padival claimed the round 1 honour in INRC 3, finishing fifth in the INRC pecking order.

One of the leading pairs, Arjun Rao and Satish Rajgopal, pulled out in the first couple of stages itself, joining six other teams on the DNF list. Aroor Vikram and Somayya A G had a bad crash and their car burnt down in the opening stage itself. Luckily, both the driver and the co-driver escaped without a scratch on their persons.