APRC: Gill drives to a convincing win at Rally Hokkaido

Gaurav Gill of Team MRF posted his fourth consecutive win in the 2016 FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship as he cruised to victory in the Rally Hokkaido here on Sunday.

Having earlier won in New Zealand, Australia and China, the 2013 champion, now competing with a new co-driver (Belgium’ Stephane Prevot), came up with another near-flawless drive in his MRF Skoda Fabia R5 to win in one minute, 50.6 seconds over his team-mate, Germany’s Fabian Kreim (Christian Frank). Cusco Racing’s Michael Young (Malcolm Read) finished third.

Enjoying an overnight lead of 01:24.9, championship leader Gill maintained a scorching pace to extend his lead by over two minutes, winning the first four of the day’s eight Special Stages before cruising home for his 13th win in the championship since his debut in 2007.

“It’s great to win. Four out of four is awesome,” said Gill. “Everything worked well. The tyres worked well since Saturday when it was wet on the tarmac and I have to thank the team for the good set-up.

“It was a very difficult rally because of weather conditions constantly changing. Mornings were all wet, afternoon became all dry, then become pretty rough, so pretty difficult but I am happy.”

Kreim, who is placed second in the championship behind Gill, said: “I think we got a lot of experience especially on these very demanding roads with very fast parts and very big ruts. All of the ruts have a lot of loose gravel and compared to the other events, it’s completely new to us and it’s very good for us.” — PTI