Ice-cool Gill completes job
Gaurav Gill's new-found ability to keep his calm and process conditions maturely paid rich dividends as the Team MRF frontman clinched the K-1000 title here on Sunday.
After opening up a remarkable 38-second lead in the first six stages on Saturday, the 29-year-old driver (navigator Musa Sherif) drove a patient, calculated Round III at the Sidhlaghatta track to scurry through unscathed.
Armed with an even bigger advantage at the end of the Special Stages, Gill, who has been known to mess things up in the Super Special Stage, stepped off the accelerator for a change in Triple S and cruised through the 2-km, 2-lap stage at the Clarks Exotica resort to extend his lead in the overall Indian National Rally Championship (INRC) table.
“This has been a good year for us,” said Gill. “We struggled in Chennai because of some weird mechanical issue but we are back on track. We have a big lead and we’re going to try and maintain that with a good run in Chikmangalur (next round, November 18). If we manage that, we’re going to win this season’s crown.”
With Gill in the forefront by quite a margin, overnight second-placed Amittrajit Ghosh (Ashwin Naik) was expected to lay off the throttle and survive the terrain.
The move could have facilitated an MRF 1-2-3 with Lohitt V Urs (co-driver Srinivas Murthy) in third, but the Kolkata driver failed to pay heed to a deteriorating track, which had become worse with relentless overnight rain, and tried to chase down Gill. Quite expectedly, Ghosh bust his crank shaft in the eighth stage and crashed out.
“I realised that I was closing in on Gill so I pushed harder. The drive shaft broke down and there is little we could do after that. We can’t win the event now, so we might as well go all out and enjoy the remaining rallies,” said a disappointed Ghosh at the Parc Ferme.
Mysore’s Urs, doubtful of even getting back into the race at the end of Round I on day one with gear-box and drive shaft issues, returned after the meticulous MRF pit crew put the car back together in a little more than 20 minutes on Saturday, and survived Sunday’s stages before streaming through the Triple S in record time (2 minutes, 19 seconds) for second spot on the podium.
“There are some problems with the car set-up but we should be able to fix it in time for the next rally,” said Urs “We didn’t have time to test the cars before this rally and it was hard for us. We have a near-three month break, that gives us enough time to test and do well.”
Karna Kadur (co-driver Somonnito Ghosh), who was leading the 2000N category at the end of day one, suffered a mechanical issue in stage eight and blocked the road, stopping the other cars from completing the stage. After the eighth stage was called off (scratch times to drivers who had not entered the track yet), the marshalls decided to cancel the ninth stage on account of poor track conditions.
With Kadur out of the way, Rahul Kantharaj (co-driver Vivek Y Bhatt) held steady to finish third overall and on top in Group N.
The surprise of the fourth INRC round was Dean Mascarenhas’ (co-driver Shruptha Padival) stunning debut in the 1400cc (Rally Star Cup). The 18-year-old Mangalorean was in his elements on day one and more than impressive on day two to claim top honours.
Results: Overall: Gaurav Gill/ Musa Sherif (Team MRF, 1:14.48) 1; Lohitt V Urs/ Srinivasa Murthy (Team MRF, 1:16.07) 2; Rahul Kantharaj/ Vivek Y Bhatt (1:23.30) 3.
2000cc (Group N+): Gill (1:14.48) 1; Urs (1:16.07) 2. 2000cc (Group N): Kantharaj (1:23.30) 1; Sreeharsh SD/ Uday Kumar D (1:25.20) 2. 1600cc: Balram CG/ Raghuram CG (1:27.04) 1; Hanoosh Suraneni/ Ravindra Kumar (1:30.30) 2; Siddharth Rangnekar/ Nitin Jacob (1:31.44) 3. 1400cc (Rally Star Cup): Dean Mascarenhas/ Shruptha Padival (1:25.16); Karan AM/ Shanmuga SN (Kari Motorsports, 1:27.07) 2; Pramod Raman/ Harish KN (1:28.47) 3. Gypsy Cup (Modified T1): Sandeep Sharma/ Venu Ramesh Kumar (1:28.35). (Stock T2): Sanjay Agarwal/ Shivaprakash E (1:28.28) 1; Shafeeq Ur Rahman/ Ajith KP 2 (1:29.44) 2; Alok Mishra/ Rohit Arya (1:43.46).
