Gaurav Gill powers his limping Mahindra to top spot after Leg 1: INRC Round 3

Kethanur (near Coimbatore), 30 Jan 2021: King of Indian motorsports, Gaurav Gill and co-driver Musa Sherif, powered their limping Mahindra XUV 300, to clock the fastest timing of the day, finishing ahead of the pack to lead the Day 1 of the Rally of Coimbatore, the third round of the Champion Yacht Club fmsci Indian National Rally Championship (INRC) for four wheelers here at the Kethanur windmill farms on Saturday.

The Arjuna Awardee and three-time APRC champion, Gill with Sherif, who is taking part in his 293rd rally, had trouble even before they started the Special Stages, as they faced electrical issues and the car failed to gain speed. They did continue despite the `misfiring’ and still clocked better timings than the others in three of the four stages.

“I was definitely off the pace, by some four minutes. Not sure what the problem is, but hopefully, it would be sorted out tonight. The misfiring started in the very first corner of the first Stage. So much so, I couldn’t even do 100 Kmph! It was frustrating in the sense that I would like to deliver good results to my sponsors and the team. Anyway, tomorrow, I hope to be on the kind of pace I want to,” said Gill at the end of the day.

Meanwhile, other top-guns Karna Kadur (co-driver Nikhil Pai), Amittrajit Ghosh (co-driver Ashwin Naik) and Dean Mascarenhas (co-driver Shruptha Padiwal), had a bad day. Kadur, running with a new engine, encountered “teething problems” through the day and lost time, but will be eyeing leg points on the morrow.Ghosh had his share of problems and had stopped while Mascarenhas dropped out due to gearbox issues.

Dr “Speed” Bikku Babu, once again was in his elements and finished the day second overall with another talented Kerala youngster Fabid Ahmer, along with new co-driver Eldo Chacko, overall third at the end of the day after four Special Stages. Two more stages will be run on Sunday.

While Dr Bikku Babu is leading the INRC 2 class from Chetan Shivram, who is now with a new co-driver Shahid Salman and running on stock engine. Sahil Khanna, navigated by Vidit Jain, is in third place. In INRC 3, Arjun Rao (co-driver Shanmuga Sundaram) is trailing Fabid Amer by just 22 seconds. Adiya Thakur (co-driver Virendra Kashyap) is in third.

In INRC 4, the Goa-Kodagu combination of Vaibhav Marathe and Suhan MK are ahead of Yeswanth Padale and Bharath SM, and Rounak Singh and  Amit Waghchaure.

Other casuality on Saturday was Rahul Kantharaj (co-driver Vivek Bhatt), who had a puncture and lost precious time.

Provisional Unaudited Results: (Results are given till 7 places, were available, to facilitate drivers and co-drivers to count their leg points)

Overall: 1. Gaurav Gill/ Musa Sherif (Mahindra Adventure3 00) (58:41.800); 2. Dr Speed – Bikku Babu/ Bonnie Thoma (VW Polo) (1:00:01.300); 3. Fabid Ahmer/ Eldo Chacko (JK Tyre) (VW Polo) (01:00:08.300); 4. Arjun Rao/ Shanmuga Sundaram (VW Polo) (1: 00:30.800); 5. Aditya Thakur/ Virendra Keshyap (VW Polo) (1:01:04.500); 6. Chetan Shivram /Shahid Salman (VW Polo) (01:01.13.100); 7. Sahil Khanna /Vidit Jain (Snap Racing) (VW Polo) (01:01:33.100); 8. Ritesh Guttedar M/  Lokaranjan HJ (VW Polo) (01:01:37.400);

Note: Phillippo Mathai/ Kumar Ramasamy (Mahindra XUV 500- MRF Tyres) 01:02:47.600 get six leg points for 2nd in INRC class; However, INRC is not a separate class.

INRC2:1. Dr Speed – Bikku Babu/ Bonnie Thomas (1:00:01.300); 2. Chetan Shivram /Shahid Salman (01:01.13.100); 3. Sahil Khanna /Vidit Jain (Snap Racing) (01:01:33.100); 4. Ritesh Guttedar M/  Lokaranjan HJ (01:01:37.400); 5. Dhruva Chandrasekhar/ PVS Murthy (01:04:11.700); 6. BC Roopesh/ Ragavendra Phalguna (01:13:10.400); 7. Rahul Kantharaj/ Vivek Bhatt (01:23:29.700). All in VW Polo.

INRC3: 1. Fabid Ahmer /Eldo Chacko (JK Tyre) (VW Polo) (01:00:08.300); 2. Arjun Rao/ Shanmuga Sundaram (VW Polo) (1: 00:30.800); 3. Aditya Thakur/ Virendra Keshyap (VW Polo) (1:01:04.500); 4. Maninder Singh Prince/ Vinay Padmashali (VW Polo) (01:02:36.400); 5.Mohammed Kasim/ Sanath G (VW Polo) (01:02:39.900); 6. Harkrishnan Wadia /Chirag Thakur (Honda City) (01:03:17.400); 7. Daraius Shroff/ Nitin Jacob (VW Polo) (01:03:22.900).

INRC 4: 1. Vaibhav Marathe/ Suhan MK (Honda City) (01:04:15.300); 2. YeswanthPadale/ Bharth SM (Honda City) (1:07:27.500); 3. Rounaq Singh/ Amit Waghchoure (Maruti Baleno) (01:08:41.900); 4. Pradeep Ravi/ Arvind Dheerendra (Maruti Suzuki Esteem) (01:09:13.400); 5.Sumesh M/ Anil Abbas (Maruti Suzuki Esteem) (01:11:54.700); 6. Amandeep Kaur/ Mohit Mallik (Maruti Suzuki Baleno) (01:14:18.300); 7. Rakesh Shukla / Dileep Sharan (Maruti Suzuki Esteem) (01:15:51.700).

Junior INRC: 1. Pragathi Gowda/ Trisha Jagannath (01:05.10.300); 2. Rohit Iyer/ M Manjunath (01:21:32.200); (Only 2 Junior INRC cars finished the four stages today)

Non-Championship class: Gypsy Challenge: 1. Sanjay Razdan/ Karan Aukta (01:07:17.700); 2. Abhishek Gowda/ Dheeraj Maney (01:08:34.100); 3. Sanjay Agarwal/ Smitha Prasad (01:08:39.000); 4. Divyanshu Vyas/ Venu Remesh;Kumar (01:08:48.600); 5. Mohd. Kaif Khan/ Arjun Dheerendra (01:10:20.600): 6. Dheeraj KV/ Pramod Raman (01:10:49.600); 7. Shyam Gopinath/ Ashwin Gururaj (01:1103.500).

Leg points as follows: 1^st Place: 7 points; 2^nd Place: 6 points, 3^rd Place: 5 points; 4^th Place: 4 points; 5^th Place: 3 points; 6^th Place: 2 points; 7^th Place: 1 point.

(15of the 59 cars that took the start, failed to finish all the four Special Stages, but many of them will be rejoining on Sunday in the Super Rally format to earn Leg Points).