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Mixed fortunes for Team MRF

V.V. Ramanan

Gill, Taguchi in second and third spots

OBIHIRO (JAPAN): Team MRF, with three cars in the fray, had reasons to cheer and despair on a truncated opening day of the Rally Hokkaido, the fourth round of the Asia Pacific Rally Championship here on Saturday.

Though the day began under good driving conditions, it ended abruptly with the last two Special Stages (SS) being cancelled because the weather started playing up from the beginning of the second half of the scheduled eight Special Stages. SS 3 had earlier been called off after an accident involving the Safety Car 0.

At the end of SS 6, Team MRF’s Gaurav Gill (co-driver Jonathon Mortimer) and Katsuhiko Taguchi (Mark Stacey) were placed overall second and third behind Cusco Racing’s Hiroshi Yanagisawa (Yoshimasa Nakahara). Scott Pedder (Glen Weston), Team MRF’s third driver, had to retire due to mechanical problems suffered in SS2. He will, however, restart on Sunday under the ‘Super Rally’ format.

Gill is less about 22 seconds behind Yanagisawa and if he can come up with a good show over the scheduled 10 Special Stages on Sunday, it would be a big boost to the young Indian who is coming back after a long break. As for Taguchi, it would not only mean a second win of the season but also gladden home fans who last saw him take the top place in 2005.

Motor Image Rally Team’s Cody Crocker (Ben Atkinson), the leader in this year’s points table, was in overall fifth place after slipping steadily from the opening stage onwards. It remains to be seen if the Australian can come up with the goods on the final day to keep his lead or at least minimise the damage.

Earlier, in a terrible ironical incident on SS3, Safety Car 0, which is driven to ensure a stage is ready for the competitive cars to drive through, crashed into a videographer, who had ventured beyond the ‘No Go’ area. The videographer was sent to a hospital with injuries in his ribcage. His camera was smashed beyond identification!

The results provisional (after day one): 1. Hiroshi Yanagisawa, Cusco Racing, 58 minutes, 36.9 seconds; 2. Gaurav Gill, Team MRF, 58:52.7; 3. Katsuhiko Taguchi, Team MRF, 58:58.6; 4. Dean Herridge, Cusco Racing, 59:20.6; 5. Cody Crocker, Motor Image Rally Team, 1:00:28.2; 6. Rifat Sungkar, Motor Image Rally Team, 1:02:00.2. Scott Pedder, Team MRF, DNF.

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