Chikmagalur: Gaurav Singh Gill (co-driver Moosa Sherif) established a commanding lead over MRF teammates Lohit Urs (Jaidas Menon) after the end of the set of four special stages (in Kadur and Birur) on Saturday.

Gaurav Gill, steering a Cedia 2000, stepped on the accelerator from the start and was never overtaken by any of the other competitors in his class. Gaurav's lead of 40 seconds will be hard to bridge and a second Indian National Rally title, after the earlier win at Kochi, looks very much on the cards.

Huge lead

Overnight leader Arjun Balu (Kumar Ramaswamy), leader in the Super Special Stage, grappled with a plethora of problems while handling the Cedia 2000. The first day's lead was eclipsed in the very first stage of the day and it was left to Lohit Urs to offer a semblance of a challenge.

Gaurav had a four second lead over Lohit Urs after the first stage and with the latter having problems with the power steering and later difficulty with the hand-brake, the deficit rose to over 17 seconds. Gaurav increased his lead at every stage and the others struggled to stay in the hunt.

The rally took a toll on a number of cars in the 1400 section. Girijashankar Joshi (GM Shrikanth) and Prithvi Dominic (Jeevarthinam) had drive shaft problems, Ranjith Gopinath (Promod Raman) flipped over and Chetan Shivram's (Shiva Prakash) bad luck continued as the car went off the road.

Unlucky

Perhaps the unluckiest on the day was the ladies team of Rayna Aranha (Radhika Chalia) who pleaded with the officials to let them start ahead of debutants Kamaljit Virdi (Manoj Kumar).

They were instead placed behind them but Virdi's Gypsy stopped suddenly at the flying finish resulting in Rayna's Esteem crashing straight into the rear of the Gypsy. Rayna said later that she had tried on many occasions to overtake the slower Gypsy but was unable to do so.

Mazdayar K. Vatcha led in the Rally Star Cup after three of the four stages of the day while Chikmagalur's Abhijeet Pai was in second place 22 seconds behind.

In the 1400 cc, Amitraj Ghosh (Sourabh Choudry) led after overtaking S. Sujay (M. Chandrashekar) after the completion of three special stages.

Provisional results: Overall (5 stages): Gaurav Gill / Moosa Sherif (Team MRF, 2000cc Cedia) 52 mins, 52 secs; Lohit Urs / Jaidas Menon (Team MRF, 1600cc Fiesta) 53.32; Arjun Balu / Kumar Ramaswamy (Team MRF, 2000cc Cedia) 53.39; Arjunrao Aroor / Satish Kumar (Team MRF, 1600cc Baleno) 55.16; Philippos Mathai / Ashwin Naik (Team MRF, 1600cc Baleno) 56.59.

1600cc (5 stages): Arjunrao Aroor / Satish Kumar (Team MRF, Baleno) 55.16; Philippos Mathai / Ashwin Naik (Team MRF, Baleno) 56.59; B.S. Pruthvi / Sunil Shetty (Baleno) 58.08.

1400cc: Amitrajit Ghosh / Sourabh Chaudhary (Esteem) 58.26; S. Sujay / M. Chandrasekhar 62.56.

Rally Star Cup (3 stages): Vatcha / Kaushik Sinde (Esteem) 31.03; Abhijeet Pai / Prajval Pai (Esteem) 31.25; Arvind J. / S.M. Bharath (Esteem) 31.53.

Gypsy Cup (3 stages): Suresh Rana / Harpreet Bawa 31.01; Surendra Babu / Sheraz Ahmed 33.24.

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