Team MRF's strong contender Gaurav Gill (co-driver Musa Sherif) made the best use of the cool conditions to gain the early advantage over his nearest rival Arjun Rao Aroor (Satish Rajagopal) of AR Racing in the third leg of the FMSCI-Speed INRC Rally of Coimbatore at the Kethanur windmill farms here on Saturday.
The stages were pretty wide and encouraged speed. And Gill, the aggressive driver that he is, went flat out at the start before playing it safe midway through. The strategy worked as the 29-year-old from Delhi slotted a 29-second lead over Aroor.
“It was a good day overall. In fact, we were lucky in the last stage. The power steering gave way and with it we lost about seven seconds,” said Gill.
He said he planned to be calm and smooth towards the end as the stages were rough. “There's no point driving hard. The story will be the same tomorrow.”
Amittrajit Ghosh (Ashwin Naik) became the first casualty of the day with drive shaft problem, while teammates Lohit Urs (P.V. Srinivas Murthy) went through mechanical woes as well in SS4. Of the 40 cars eight failed to finish.
The results (provisional unaudited partial classification):
Overall: 1. Gaurav Gill / Musa Sherif (Team MRF) 1:12:42.3s; 2. Arjun Rao Aroor / Satish K. Rajagopal (AR Racing) 1:13:10.9; 3. Arjun Balu / B.S. Sujith Kumar 1:13:26.0.
2000cc (N+): 1.Gaurav Gill / Musa Sherif 1:12:42.3 secs; 2. Arjun Rao Aroor / Sastish K Rajagopal 1:13:10.9; 3. Arjun Balu / Sujith Kumar BS 1:13:26.0.
2000cc (Group N): 1.Vikram Devadasen / A.G. Somayya (Pvt) 1:18:10.7; 2. Karna Kadur (Somonita Ghosh) 1:18:13.1; 3. Shailendra Hegde / Prajwal Pai 1:18:46.7.
1600cc: 1.C.G.Balram /Santosh Kumar 1:23:44.6; 2. Prakhyat Shirole / Rupesh Kholay (Pvt) 1:27:31.1; 3. Siddhartha Rangnekar / Nitin Jacob 1:28:39.8.
1400cc (Star Cup): 1. A.M.Karan / S.N. Shanmuga 1:12:26.1; 2. Raghunandan /B. Suraj Prasad 1:14:31.4; 3. Pramod Raman / K.N. Harish 1:15:48.3.
Gypsy (Stock): 1.Sanjay Agarwal / E. Shivaprakash 1:13:40.0; 2. Shafeeq-ur-Rehman / Adhiraj Bardhan 1:17:54.5; 3. John K Philip / Philip Thomas 1:25: 52.6).
