Defending Asia Pacific Rally Champion Gaurav Gill of Team MRF, as expected, won the Malaysian Rally, the fourth round of this year’s APRC, here on Sunday.
A problem with the rear suspension couldn’t halt his march towards victory as he emerged 13:02.5s ahead of Mark Pedder and put himself within ten points of overall championship leader and teammate Jan Kopecky.
Gill got off to a wonderful start, winning the day’s first stage, Tai Tak Court House, by over 11 seconds. But trouble with his suspension in the next stage meant that he had to ease off. “Good day today,” said Gill after the victory. “May be not the best. We wanted to charge and get the points because the conditions were perfect.
“But because of the problem we had to take it easy and the priority was to make sure one of the cars finished on top. We can’t be fooling around.”
Though Kopecky dominated day two, winning five of the six stages, he was ineligible for the overall classification as a similar suspension problem on Saturday had forced him to end abruptly.
“It was quite good for us,” said the Czech. “I had a nice lead yesterday. Unfortunately I crashed. So a bit disappointed.”
With this result, the two Team MRF drivers will be involved in the straight battle for the title as the racing bandwagon now moves to Japan (September 26-28).
“I have to push again because the battle is very close,” said Kopecky. “There is still no pressure.
“It’s just good for the team at least one car has won the rally. Hopefully I can find the same pace as we did in this rally.”
“The strategy will be to go absolutely flat out from the word go in Japan,” said Gill.
“That’s going to be sort of a decider for us. Either make it or break it.”
Final Standings: 1. Gaurav Gill (Ind) 3:01:23.2s; 2. Mark Pedder (Aus) 3:14:25.7s; 3. Xu Jun (Chn) 3:14:47.4s; 4. Sanjay Takle (Ind) 3:28:44.8s; 5. Michael Young (Nzl) 3:35:21.0s.
(N. Sudarshan is in Johor Bahru at the invitation of MRF)
