Gill wins Speed-Indian National Rally

Gaurav Gill and co-driver Musa Sherif of Team MRF clocked the best time in the Spectator Special Stage to win the third leg of the Speed-Indian National Rally Championship.

Kolkata: Gaurav Gill and co-driver Musa Sherif of Team MRF displayed controlled aggression but still clocked the best time in the Spectator Special Stage to win the third leg of the Speed-Indian National Rally Championship that concluded at Jadavpur stadium here on Sunday.

Driving a Mitsubishi Lancer Cedia, Gill was quicker than his arch-rival Amittrajit Ghosh (co-driver Ashwin Naik) by two seconds over two laps of the 1.2-km long circuit to take the overall honours and also the 2000cc N+ category. The 28-year-old Gill, who had two DNF tags in the Coimbatore and Bangalore legs, fought back hard to be the quickest on all the three days as he logged 16 points.Unless the pending protests change the points position, Ghosh will trail Gill by a narrow margin in the INRC with Nashik (October 30-November 1), Chikmagalur (November 20-22) and Shimla (December 11-13) legs to go. “It certainly feels great to win a rally after such a long time. At one point, I wasn’t sure how long my bad luck would continue, but finally I have a victory under my belt. I have turned the corner,” a relieved Gill said.In the other classes, the overnight positions remained much the same except in the Gypsy Cup where Anil Wadia (co-driver Prajwal Pai) of Team Thunderbolt moved up to second place from third, displacing Bobby Jose (co-driver Bobby Varghese) of Team DDL Sports. Patiala’s Khushwant Singh Radhanwa (co-driver Vinay Sekhar) came up with a fine performance in the SSS to confirm their victory in the Gypsy Cup after finishing second to Sandeep Sharma in the previous two rounds. Sujay S (co-driver Varun S) easily held on to their top position in the 1600cc class as did Francis K Jose (co-driver Manoj Mohan) of Team DDL Sports in the 1400cc category and Karna Kadur (co-driver Somonita Ghosh) in the Rally Star Cup. Bureau Report