The Hindu : Sport : Gaurav Singh Gill is the champion

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Aug 14, 2006

Sport

Sport

Gaurav Singh Gill is the champion

Special Correspondent

Karandip Singh leads the overall standings

EFFORT REWARDED: Gaurav Singh Gill (left) and co-driver Farooq Ahmed, winners of 1600cc at the MICO Bosch K-1000 Rally. — Photo: K. Murali Kumar

MADDUR: Gaurav Singh Gill adopted safe tactics to ensure a victory for the debut car Mitsubishi Lancer Cedia 2000 in the K-1000 Mico Bosch Rally here on Sunday. Karandip Singh ended with his third straight runner-up slot out of the three events held in the INRC thus far and he leads the overall championship standings with a slender lead of two points. Gaurav is in second place and Naren Kumar a further two points behind Gaurav after the completion of three rounds.

Bad start

Gaurav who had a 52 second buffer after Leg 1 on Saturday began rather badly in the second and third special stages of the day with rear suspension problems plaguing the car. This helped Karandip make up 28s on the overnight leader and at the first service break the think tank in both the camps of JK Tyres and MRF began to work overtime.

JK Tyres concentrated on a winning finish for the Lancer Cedia and Naren Kumar was given the mantle of pushing for bonus points for leg two. MRF's think tank opted for a second place finish along with bonus points to take the lead in the overall standings and that's the way the day's rallying went off. Gaurav showed he could nurse a car to the chequered flag, Naren got his points for the day and Karandip settled for the second spot but wrested the lead in the cumulative points tally.

There were seven dropouts for the day with Arjun Rao Aroor (Chandramouli) flipping into the canal on SS 10 (the third stage of the day). Arjun's car was wheels up in four feet of canal water and the windows were not opening. Alert villagers smashed the windscreen and rescued Arjun and Chandramouli who escaped without injuries but were quite shaken.

The provisional results: (Overall): 1. Gaurav Singh Gill (Farooq Ahmed) JK Tyres 1:28.12; 2. Karandip Singh (Jaidas Menon) MRF 1:28.45; 3. Arjun Balu (Kumar Ramaswamy) 1:28.56.

Upto 1400cc: 1. Girijashankar Joshy (G.N. Srikanth) 1:31.45; 2. Sanjay Aggarwal (Pradeep Kumar) 1:32.50; 3. Bikku Babu (Bonnie Thomas) 1:36.56.

Rally Star Cup: Rajesh Gadakh (Paritosh Kohok) 1:38.12; 2. Amanpreet Ahluwalia (Manoj Shadija) 1:38.58; 3. Deepak Paul Chinappa (Sri Karunya) 1:40.25.

Gypsy Class: 1. Suresh Rana (Surendar Kumar) 1:39.38; 2. Saket Shanbagh (Ramesh Shanbagh) 1:39.40; 3. Khushwant Rana (Harpreet Singh) 1:43.38.

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