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Team MRF powers to victory at Chikmagalur
Gill-Sherif emerge overall champs
Chikmagalur: Nov 21, DHNS:
Speed demon Gaurav Gill and co-driver Musa Sherif of Team MRF clinched the Indian National Rally Championship by winning the Rally of Chikmagalur, the fifth and final round of the INRC which saw Team MRF win the top three places here on Sunday.
With a comfortable lead in the first leg, Gill left his characteristic speed dashes and did not go all out. He displayed controlled aggression and was content to be second fastest with the title in mind. Though the official declaration is expected on November 28 on the pending protests, Gill is unlikely to be affected as he has an insurmountable 46 points. It turned out to be MRF's day with Lohith Urs and Arjun Rao Aroor doing just about enough to take the second and third placings respectively. Lohith gave Gill a close run and in fact was fastest in all the stages but lost three minutes due to a penalty for early arrival.
Their job was made easy as Red Rooster Racing drivers Vikram Mathias and Amittrajit Ghosh did not finish. Girijashankar Joshy won the 1600cc category with a time of 1 hour, 42 minutes, 26 seconds pushing Rahul Kanthraj and Joseph C Jos to second and third place, respectively but it was Sujay S who earned a leg point and won the National title in this class with 50 points overall. Joseph Jos and Rahul Kanthraj finished second and third in the National championship.
In the 1400cc class, Vikram Devadasan won with a time of 1 hour, 44 minutes, 57 seconds while Ahijeet N Pai finished second and Deepak Chinnappa third. Vikram Devadasan won the National title with 54 points. Francis K Jose who finished fourth on Sunday bagged five points to take second place in the National championship. In the Maruti Gypsy class, Kushwant Randhawa blamed it on gears for losing the title to Sandeep Sharma by just one point. Kushwant (49) enjoyed a narrow three point lead over Sandeep (46) before the start of this rally. Sandeep garnered all the 16 points here to take his tally to 62 while Kushwant could only get 12 and missed out with a total of 61 points.
