Birthday boy Armin Kremer takes lead after Day 1: APRC

Pune, 5 Dec 2003: Birthday boy Armin Kremer of Germany put his Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 7 in the lead on the opening day on Friday. Driving along with co-driver Fred Berssen for Team MRF Tyres, the duo emerged as the early leaders in the Asia Pacific Rally Championship conducted along with Indian National Rally Championship here on Friday.

Kremer, the Group N (unmodified) 2003 APRC champion and the 2001 European champion, led Japan’s Fumio Nutahara (co-driver Satoshi Hayashi) by 66 points to 54, going into the MRF India Rally, the fifth and concluding round of the 2003 APRC series. Thus, he clinched the Group N title when Nutahara retiring after a crash in Special Stage-3.

Kremer, who celebrated his 40th birthday on Thursday, topped the time charts at the end of Day One and with it earned three points for being the fastest in Leg 1. The three points saw him overhaul the overall championship leader, Geof Argyle (co-driver Steve Smith) of Racetech Seats, New Zealand, and lead by 46 points to 45.

Argyle, driving a Group A Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution 6.5, lost considerable time due to a puncture, a broken strut and an overheating engine that capped a rather disappointing outing as he returned to the cool of his hotel room without a point after finishing fifth in Leg 1.

And in between, strong contenders Karamjit Singh and co-driver Allen Oh of Malaysia, driving a Group A Proton Pert for Team Petronas Eon Racing, had a puncture and lost two minutes in SS-5. In the process, Karamjit, had to concede the lead to Kremer who was ahead by a minute on Friday.

“Yes, it is good to win the Group N championship, but Saturday would be crucial as I am sure, Karamjit will be pushing hard to make up time. A one-minute lead is nothing much and I need to drive well to hold off both Karamjit and Argyle,” said Kremer.

Kremer too suffered a puncture in SS-3 but recovered fast to carry on his campaign. “I somehow managed to finish the Stage, but lost about 18 seconds due to the puncture,” Kremer, the 3-time German champion added.

David Doppelreiter of Austria (co-driver Ola Floene of Norway), also of Team MRF Tyres, drove conservatively to finish Leg 1 fourth Overall and third in Group N, behind Kremer and Domenico Caldarola (co-driver Paolo Cecchni) of Italy.

Karandip-Jaidas lead: In the MAI Indian National Rally Championship, the seventh and concluding round of the series, a lot of drivers failed to finish the day. Karandip Singh and co-driver Jaidas Menon of Team MRF, driving a Honda City V-tec, Overall first at the end of Leg 1 with a lead of over four minutes on second-placed Jiby Maliakkal and co-driver Nikhil Pai.

Top guns like VR Naren Kumar and co-driver D Ramkumar, and his MRF team-mates N Leelakrishnan (Farooq Ahmed), Arjun Balu (Kumar Ramaswamy) and Vikram Mathias (Sujith Kumar), retire due to mechanical problems.

Provisional/unaudited classifications after Leg 1 (90.08 Kms):

APRC Overall: 1. Armin Kremer/ Fred Berssen (Team MRF Tyres) (1hr, 21mins, 34.9secs); 2. Karamjit Singh/ Allen Oh (Team Petronas Eon Racing) (1:22:34.9); 3. Domenico Caldarola/ Paolo Cecchini (1:23:14.5); 4. David Doppelreiter/ Ola Floene (Team MRF Tyres) (1:23:49.2); 5. Andrew Hawkeswood/ Paul Fallon (Force Motorsport Ltd) (1:26:08.1); 6. Geof Argyle/ Steve Smith (Team Racetech Seats) (1:30:30.3); 7. Chris Atkinson/ Ben Atkinson (Monster Sport Australia) (1:32:58.0); 8. Brian Green/ Fleur Pedersen (Team Racetech Seats) (1:33:38.8).

APRC Group N: 1. Kremer/Berssen; 2. Caldarola/Cecchini; 3. Doppelreiter/Floene.

Leg points: Kremer/Berssen 3 pts; Karamjit/Oh 2 pts; Caldarola/Cecchini 1 pt.

MAI-INRC Overall: 1. Karandip Singh/ Jaidas Menon (Team MRF Tyres) (1:35:44.4); 2. Jiby Maliakkal/Nikhil Pai (1:40:31.2); 3. Lohit V Urs/ Musa Sherif (1:42:24.5); 4. Rahul Kantharaj/ Vivek Bhat (Team Movva) (1:47:08.7).

Rally Star Cup: 1. Arjun Rao Aroor/ CK Chinnappa (Team Mandovi) (1:48:00.7); 2. Ranjit Ballal/ Shanmuga Nataraj (1:48:34.7); 3. Sanjay Agarwal/ Ashwin Naik (Team GMW) (1:50:28.9); 4. Prithveen Rajan/ Jay Kumar (1:52:37.3).