Left did not turn out right for Team MRF’s Gaurav Gill!
His Skoda Fabia2000’s steering arm snapped while negotiating a left turn in Special Stage 4, sending the Indian and co-driver Glenn Macneall into a spin and a plunge to the right of the track, in the first leg of the International Rally of Queensland that was completed under bright skies here on Saturday.
“We hit a hole in SS2 and the impact could have weakened the arm that led to the incident later,” lamented Macneall while adding that the car was beyond repair and it was all over for the duo in the rally, the third in this year’s Asia Pacific Rally Championship. The mishap did not cause any injury to the champion pair, given the fact the vehicle came to rest some 30 metres down a slope after two rollovers.
However, there was cause for cheer in the MRF paddock as Jan Kopecky (Pavel Dresler) swept six of the 10 Special Stages, after losing the first and third stages to Gill, to be on top of the leaderboard at the end of the day. The other two stages were won by Mark Pedder (Claire Dowling). The Czech was content with the drive on Saturday.
APRC drivers’ timings (after first day, top three): 1. Jan Kopecky (Team MRF) 01:12:39.4s; 2. Scott Pedder (Scott Pedder) 01:14:06.7; 3. Brendan Reeves (Brendan Reeves) 01:15:08.9.
(V.V. Ramanan is in Australia on the invitation of MRF Ltd.)
