Gaurav Gill wins record 7th INRC title; equals Naren Kumar’s feat; surpasses Leela’s

By David Bodapati

Coimbatore, 31 Jan 2021: Gaurav Gill and experienced navigator Musa Sherif, clinched their 7th National title in the Rally of Coimbatore, the third and penultimate round of the Champions Yacht Club fmsci Indian National Rally Championship 2020 (INRC), with a round to spare here on Sunday.

Gill equalled the record of Naren Kumar’s seven National titles and surpassed Narayanaswamy Leelakrishnan (6), his current tuner. Incidentally, Gill also won three FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship titles and he has also taken part in the World Rally Championship in WRC2 class.

Gill garnered 116 points from three rounds and with only K-1000 with a maximum of 39 points on offer, left in the calendar, Gill has sealed the championship with a round to spare. Here in Coimbatore, Gill’s XUV 300 turbo suffered from electrical issues and he struggled to do even 100 Kmph.

Yet, Gill won five of the six stages and despite having electrical issues from the very beginning that hampered his speed, he brought home his limping car to get him the latest National title that put him on a pinnacle.

“Yes, the stages were very narrow and rough terrain which made it highly technical. This year the stage distance was increased and now it is one of the longest (over 19 Kms) stages in Indian rallies, so the route became very tough. But I like it because, it is always nice to win the Stages which are tough and demanding. I did suffer initial hiccups but as the saying goes, it is nice to conquer things when the going gets tough,” quipped Gill.

The Arjuna Awardee and Delhi-based driver, who is nick-named the King of Indian Motorsports, is truly a force to reckon with, and had he progressed to the WRC earlier than he did, in his peak, India and FMSCI would now have boasted of a World Champion.

But all is not lost as Gill still dreams of WRC, and the champion in him is eager to produce big results. For now, he will be taking part in the FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship (APRC) again with the first round of 2021 season in Chennai from 26 to 28 March. It will be run simultaneously for Asia Cup and South India Rally as the 2021 INRC Round, provided the calendar is approved by FMSCI for INRC.

Meanwhile, two entrants from Kerala, “Dr Speed” Bikku Babu, who is maturing like old wine, won in the INRC 2 class and “Mr Clean” Fabid Ahmer topped the INRC 3 category, to make up for a bad outing in Itanagar. Ahmer managed to recoup, fight and get back with his clean-and-steady driving to lead the championship once again by eight points in INRC3.

Dean Mascarenhas, who retired with a gear box failure, still leads the championship in INRC2 with one round to go. The A seeded driver, Babu, and B seeded Ahmer, are not the only drivers from the stable of Chettinad Sporting, as the Goa-Coorg combination of Vaibhav Marathe, a product of Champions Group, won INRC 4 class, along with co-driver Suhan M Kabir. The duo clinched the issue after some hiccups in Round 1 at Itanagar. The Champions Yacht Club Director in Goa, Marathe, is leading the championship table in his class with a podium in Round 2 and a win here.

The Team which hogged limelight on the day was Chettinad Sporting, led by Thyagarajan and Roshan, the men behind the cars’ performance. The team won three out of four Championship classes and had one more podium to boost as a bonus. It was in 2014 in Nashik that the team had swept all the classes but one, and today is a great day for a team which started its journey with South India Rally in 1996 and went on to field two cars for the rally in Coorg in 2007, where Chettinad Sporting had a good presence with their blue colour dominating the car livery. And today, after 25 years, they came out with flying colours with three wins. “Three cheers to all the mechanics, the drivers, co-drivers and the men who believed in them who made the journey possible… For us, drivers and co-drivers are always the heroes and all praise should go to them,” said Thyagarajan.

Gill, too, has played no less a role, as both Bikku Babu and FabidAhmer were part of his Rally School and learnt the tricks of the trade to blossom and perform to their potential. Chettinad Sporting provieds technical support to Gill’s academy in the Kethanur windmill farms near Coimbatore.

Meanwhile, defending champion Chethan Shivram with a new navigator in Shahid Salman, in his Volkswagon Polo 1.6 bereft of the usual LSD, still managed to finish fourth overall and second in his class which is a big achievement. But the luck that deserted with Dilip Sharan, who is now navigating for Rakesh Shukla in an Esteem, may have dampened the spirit, but the champ in Shivram continues to fight for honours with K-1000 still on the radar. Chetan and his brother Dilip had won the 2019 championship with FRK led by Fazal Khan tuning the car, for Team Akshara Racing, as they got into the exclusive club of 10 Overall INRC winners in 32 years.

Harikrishna Wadi and co-driver Chirag Thakur put their Honda City on top in the Junior INRC category and 11th overall, while Pragathi Gowda, driving with a new navigator in her third rally, in Trisha Jagannath, came second in their VW Polo. Mysore lad Rakshith Iyer and co-driver Chandrasekhar were third in Junior class in an Esteem.

Sanjay Razdan and navigator Karan Aukta won the Gypsy Challenge with veteran Sanjay Agarwal and co-driver Smitha Prasad taking second and the pair of Divyanshu Vyas and VenuRemesh Kumar third.

In the Ladies Class, 27-year debutante Athira Murali of Kottayam won the Round 3 in an INRC4 Esteem along with co-driver George Varghese, despite losing a lot of time due to a slower car ahead which had technical issues. Another lady driver from the north, Amandeep Kaur, who is also making her debut in the INRC, came second, with ever-smiling navigator Mohit Malik in a Baleno ahead of mother-daughter pair of doctors in Dr Shivani Pruthvi and Dr Deepthi Pruthvi, from Davangere in Karnataka, who finished on the podium, despite some issues with the car, in this class.

Of the 59 cars that took the start on Day 1, only 33 cars completed the rally and 26 failed to finish. The fourth and last round of the delayed 2020 INRC 2020, K-1000, is scheduled to be run by Karnataka Motor Sports Club (KMSC) from 12 to 14 February, 2021.

Unaudited Provisional Results: (Round 3 after Sunday’s six Special Stages):

Overall: 1. Gaurav Gill/ Musa Sherif (Mahindra Adventure3 00) (1hour, 27min, 56.700seconds); 2. Dr Speed – Bikku Babu/ Bonnie Thoma (VW Polo) (1:29:21.100); 3. Fabid Ahmer/ Eldo Chacko (JK Tyre) (VW Polo) (01:29:57.200); 4. Chetan Shivram /Shahid Salman (VW Polo) (01:31.05.500); 5. Aditya Thakur/ Virendra Keshyap (VW Polo) (1:31:36.700); 6. Ritesh Guttedar M/  Lokaranjan HJ (VW Polo) (01:31:43.600); 7. Sahil Khanna /Vidit Jain (Snap Racing) (VW Polo) (01:32:54.200); 8. Maninder Singh Prince/ Vinay Padmashali (JK Tyre – VW Polo) (1:32:57.400); 9. Phillippos Mathai/ Kumar Ramasamy (Mahindra XUV 500) (1:33:18.600); 10. Mohammed Kasim/ Sanath G (VW Polo) (1:33:45.300).

INRC2:1. Dr Speed – Bikku Babu/ Bonnie Thomas (1:29:21.100); 2. Chetan Shivram /Shahid Salman (01:31.05.500); 3. Ritesh Guttedar M/  Lokaranjan HJ (01:31:43.600); 4. Sahil Khanna /Vidit Jain (Snap Racing) (01:32:54.200); 5. Rahul Kantharaj/ Vivek Bhatt (01:54:07.500); 6. Suhem Kabir/ Jeevarathinam (2:12:24.600); 7. Lakshay Veer Dabas/ Sagar Mallappa (Snap Racing/ VW Polo) (2:13:27.500); All in VW Polo.

INRC3: 1. Fabid Ahmer /Eldo Chacko (JK Tyre) (VW Polo) (01:29:57.200); 2. Aditya Thakur/ Virendra Keshyap (VW Polo) (1:31:36.700); 3. Maninder Singh Prince/ Vinay Padmashali (VW Polo) (1:32:57.400); 4.Mohammed Kasim/ Sanath G (VW Polo) (01:33:45.300); 5. Harkrishnan Wadia /Chirag Thakur (Honda City) (01:34:42.300); 6. Pragathi Gowda/ Trisha Jagannath (Team Vasundhara/ VW Polo) (1:37:08.200); 7. Ashad Pasha/ Deeksha Balakrishna (VW Polo) (01:37:18.300).

INRC 4: 1. Vaibhav Marathe/ Suhan MK (Honda City) (01:36:51.700); 2. Yeswanth Padale/ Bharth SM (Honda City) (1:40:34.300); 3. Pradeep Ravi/ Arvind Dheerendra (Maruti Suzuki Esteem) (01:42:13.200); 4.Sumesh M/ Anil Abbas (Maruti Suzuki Esteem) (01:46:31.700); 5. Athira Murali/ George Varghese (1:52:10.400); 6. Amandeep Kaur/ Mohit Mallik (Maruti Suzuki Baleno) (01:14:18.300); 7. Rakesh Shukla / Dilip Sharan (Maruti Suzuki Esteem) (01:53:01.300).

Junior INRC: 1. #28; Harikrishna Wadi/ Chirag Thakur (JK Tyre -Honda City) (1:34:42.300); 2. #38; Rakshit Iyer/ M Chandrashekar (Maruti Suzuki Esteem) (2:04:07.800); 3. #36; Shivani Pruthvi/ Deepthi Pruthvi (JK Tyre Mitsubishi Cedia) (2:15:15.200); Only 4 cars of the 6 eligible for Junior INRC finished.

Non-Championship class

Gypsy Challenge: 1. Sanjay Razdan/ Karan Aukta (01:40:40.200); 2. Sanjay Agarwal/ Smitha Prasad (01:42:44.700); 3. Divyanshu Vyas/ Venu Remesh;Kumar (01:44:03.900);4. Mohd. Kaif Khan/ Arjun Dheerendra (01:44:30.900); 5. Dheeraj KV/ Pramod Raman (01:45:31.700); 6. Daksh Gill/ Mrinmoy Saha (1:57:58.600);

(Only 6 of the 12 Gypsies finished).

Ladies Class: 1. #47 Athira Murali/ George Varghese (Esteem); 2. #46 Amandeep Kaur/ Mohit Malik (Baleno); 3. #36 Shivani Pruthvi/ Deepthi Pruthvi (Mitsubishi Cedia).

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