Current leader, Team MRF, isn't rejoicing yet. For the Asia Pacific Car Rally Championship, the last and final round, is a competition like no other. Treacherous terrains, heavy boulders, and unexpected appearance of concrete make the Longyou rally a test of skill, patience and temperament.
“It’s like driving in the Himalayan rally,” said MRF’s driver Gaurav Gill, who is placed second (97 points) overall in the championship behind team-mate Katsuhiko Taguchi (100 points). It's exceptionally difficult, long and challenging,” he added. Taguchi, looking to regain the APRC drivers title for the second time — he last won it way back in 1999 — said it’s a terrain which could be fatal if one thinks of driving fast. The route is tricky and twisty, many rocks and has long stages,” he said. “Our target is survival (finish the race). We’ll do it by driving fast but with less pace.”
With the Indonesia round (September 25-26) cancelled due to heavy rain, which inundated the rally terrain, this round will decide the APRC champion.
Taguchi began the season with impressive victories, winning outright in Japan and Malaysia. However, in subsequent rounds mechanical failures disrupted his winning streak. He faltered in New Zealand, but recovered with a third position in Australia.
Gill has matured after two years of APRC experience. His composed driving style has produced the desired results — he has finished all his rounds this year which is an improvement over his past record of ‘Did Not Finish’.
With a third position in Japan, second in Malaysia, after a dismal show in New Zealand he returned with a decisive victory in Australia — the second APRC victory of his career. If Gill continues to drive with consistency, he could win the China round and become the first Indian APRC title winner.
This is the first year that both MRF drivers are ahead with a huge lead in the APRC points tally. The third driver, Rifat Sungkar (Indonesia) has 69 points. MRF made it clear that there are no team orders and that they will not get involved in the competition between drivers.
This could be MRF’s third APRC Drivers’ title victory. It won in 2003 with Armin Kremer (Germany) and in 2005 Jussi Valimaki (Finland) won the title.
A feature of the rally this year in Longhou is the inclusion of mixed surface stages. Twelve of the special stages will feature at least some distance of concrete road, which may prove to be challenging for some drivers.
Thankfully for MRF, there has been no rain here thereby making the job of the drivers that much easier. And the super special stage on Friday, where spectators turned up in quite a large numbers, saw Gill (co-driver Chris Murphy) emerge fastest in a time of 00:01:45.3 while Taguchi (co-driver Chris Murphy) came third at 00:01:46.0.
