Arjun Balu-Kumar Ramaswamy win Rally de Goa; MRF cars missing

Panaji (Goa), 2 Nov 2003: Talented Ajrun Balu and co-driver Kumar Ramaswamy, the Coimbatore duo of Team MRF, steered their Honda City V-Tec, to an emphatic overall win as they bagged Rally de Goa, the fifth round of the MAI-Indian National Rally Championship, which concluded in here on Sunday.

With this win Arjun Balu moved to the second spot on the leadership table behind Naren Kumar, who did not rally here. Other top drivers could not take part as four MRF cars did not arrive at the venue on time for scrutiny and rally. However, Naren Kumar and Ramkumar still enjoy a 28-point lead with two more rounds left in the championship. Karandip Singh and Jaidas Menon, also of MRF, are in third place.

They enjoyed a huge lead of over four minutes to second-placed R Karthikeyan and co-driver G Satish who steered a Maruti Esteem. In the process, Karthikeyan and Satish won the INRC 1400cc category, followed by Rahul Kantharaj and Vivek Bhatt of Team Movva in second.

But for a simple mistake, Gulf Oil-sponsored pair of Jiby Maliakkal and co-driver Nikhil Pai would have put their Honda City on the podium. But they had to be content with fourth overall after they lost considerable amount of time due an off-road excursion on Saturday. However, they tried, Jiby could not make up the deficit on Sunday and ended fourth in the eight-car field. All 8 finished the rally.

“It was nice to win my first event since the India Rally last year, but it would have been more satisfying had my teammates too taken part,” said Balu soon after, spraying champagne over his co-driver at the parc ferme.

Balu was referring to the absence of reigning National champion VR  Naren Kumar, Karandip Singh, N Leelakrishnan and Vikram Mathias, all of Team MRF, who could not take the start on Saturday as their Honda City cars did not arrive at the venue in time. Nevertheless, Balu had to contend with a problematic clutch that he said considerably cut into his time.

“On the uphill sections, especially, I was struggling to go quicker, and had my team-mates taken part, I doubt I would have won. But of course, it is still nice to taste success,” said Balu who had led the field overnight by over three minutes.

The competition in the 1400cc, however, hotted up after today’s results as Kantharaj overtook leader Lohit V Urs who too failed to take the start on Saturday. Kantharaj has 43 points to Lohit’s 40, while Karthikeyan is within striking distance of the two front-runners with a tally of 39 points.

Meanwhile, the collegian from Manipal, Arjun Rao Aroor and co-driver Musa Sherif comfortably won the Rally Star Cup category, 49 seconds in front of Prithveen, a post-graduate student from Chennai, and co-driver PVS Murthy.

Provisional final classifications: INRC Overall: 1. Arjun Balu/Kumar Ramaswamy (Team MRF)  (1 hr, 14 mins, 25 secs); 2. R Karthikeyan/G Sathish (1:19:02); 3. Rahul Kantharaj/Vivek Bhatt (Team Movva) (1:19:08); 4. Jiby Maliakkal/Nikhil Pai (Team Gulf Oil) (1:28:45).

INRC 1400cc: 1. Karthikeyan/Sathish; 2. Rahul Kantharaj/ Vivek Bhatt.

Rally Star Cup: 1. Arjun Rao Aroor/Musa Sherif (Team Mandovi) 1 (1:19:23); 2. Prithveen/PVS Murthy (1:20:12); 3. Ranjith Ballal/Shanmuga (1:22:10);4.  S Ram Prasanth/Thiru Murthy 4 (1:22:15).