Gill leads field at Chikmagalur

The rally, which is all set to kick off with the Super Special Stage at the Amber Valley School grounds on Friday morning, will see some exciting competition, especially in the 2000cc Group N that has eight entries with championship leader Rahul Kanthraj (co-driver Vivek Bhatt) leading the way after a fine win in the K-1000. As far as the 2000cc Group N+ goes, Delhi’s Gaurav Gill (co-driver Musa Sheriff) once again will lead the challenge along with three other cars from Team MRF. Gill, who last month took part in MRF’s Formula 1600 round at the Buddh International Circuit as part of the support race for the inaugural edition of the Indian Grand Prix, leads the overall INRC standings with 111 points. Kanthraj is second on the overall table with 59 points while Gill’s MRF team-mate Lohitt Urs is in third with 56. The promising young Karna Kadur (co-driver Somonita Ghosh) lies in second place behind Kanthraj (102) in Group N with 81 points.

The 1600cc class will witness a fight between the Ranganekar siblings Anirudha (Anoop Kumar) and Siddharth (Nitin Jacob), while Karan AM (Shanmuga SN) and Sanjay Agarwal (Shivaprakash E) head the two non-championship categories -- Star Cup (1400cc) and Gypsy Cup -- respectively.