Gill clinches Rally of Kerala

Team MRF’s Gill, who had crashed out of the ‘Triple S’ in Coimbatore, Jodhpur and Karnataka due to mechanical snags, played it safe for his second leg win this season. Gill (co-driver Musa Sherif) had earlier won the season opener in Nasik.

Red Rooster Racing’s Amittrajit Ghosh (co-driver Ashwin Naik) clocked the quickest time in the Triple-S but with Gill ahead by more than a second after two days of racing, he settled for the second spot. Ghosh’s team-mate and six-time INRC champion Naren Kumar (co-driver D Ram Kumar) drove a typically calculated leg for a third-place finish.

With this win, Gill (31) added 15 points to the 16 he had earned in Nasik to jump to the third spot on the overall table, while Naren (38) -- eight leg points in this race and 30 from other legs in the championship -- remains in command of the overall lead.
Bangalore’s Vikram Mathias (co-driver PVS Murthy) is in second place with 33 points overall.

Hyderabad leg off?

Meanwhile, the Rally of Hyderabad, which was postponed to January 21 from the originally scheduled date of November 12, is likely to be called off. The sixth and the final round of this year’s championship, which was postponed due to an incomplete course, was to be held next year but officials from the Andhra Pradesh Motor Sports Club suggested that the race could be cancelled because of some ‘issues’ with FMSCI.

“There were some problems with the track and we fixed it but there are some other issues. It’s too soon to say if we will or won’t conduct the race,” a senior APMSC official told Deccan Herald over phone without going into specifics.

However, Federation of Motor Sports Clubs of India CEO Rajan Sayal denied the rumours and said that the event will go on as scheduled.

Results: Overall: Gaurav Gill/ Musa Sherif (Team MRF, 1::14:37.8) 1; Amittrajit Ghosh/ Ashwin Naik (Red Rooster Racing, 1::15:03.0) 2; Naren Kumar/ D Ram Kumar (RRR, 1::15:52.8) 3.

2000 N+: Gill/ Sherif (1::14:37.8) 1; Ghosh/ Ashwin Naik (1::15:03.0) 2; Naren/ Ram (1::15:52.8) 3.

2000 N: Girijashankar Joshy/ Chandramouli M (Team Ovion, 1::21:47.7) 1; Sujay Suresh/ SM Bharath (1::21:51.1) 2; Sirish Chandran/ Nikhil Pai (Team Overdrive, 1::27:01.7) 3.
1600 cc: Rahul Kantharaj/ Vivek Y Bhat (Privateer, 1::26: 56.1) 1; Shailendra Hegde/ Shiraj Ahmed (1:: 30:24.0) 2; Ranjit Gopinath/ Suresh Babu (1::30:46.1) 3.

1400 cc: Byram Godrej/ Anjay Kapadia (1::28: 42.6) 1; CG Balram/ CG Raghuram (1::29:16.1) 2; Aniruddha Ranganathan/ Halley Prabhakar (1::34:32.0) 3.
Rally Star Cup: MR Venkatapathy/ S Santosh Kumar (1::29:03.7) 1; Phalguna V Urs/ Anoop Kumar (1::29:39.0) 2; N Harikeshav/ AG Somayya (1::31:26.7) 3.
 Gypsy: Amrinder Brar/ Nilesh (Army Adventure Wing, 1::30:29.7) 1; Shakti Bajaj/ Dharmesh Sinha (AAW, 1::33:26.4) 2; Elias Thomas Paarel/ Thomas Phillip (1::36:15.9) 3.