Rajasthan INRC: Gill eases to second victory of 2017

Gill, who drives a Super XUV500, started the rally on an ominous note by topping Saturday’s 13.9km Night Hawk with a time of 13m12.1s.

While many would have expected the 35-year-old to continue his dominant performance on Sunday, a puncture in SS2 saw him drop behind Arka Motorsports’ Karna Kadur (Nikhil Pai) and teammate Amittrajit Ghosh (Ashwin Naik).

Despite the setback, the two-time APRC champion managed to return to the top of leaderboard by completing SS3 with an impressive time of 12m09.5s.

Gill would go on to win the next two stages as well, before slowing down a tad bit in the rally-concluding SS7 to take an easy victory. This is his second victory of the year.

Meanwhile, Gill’s early challengers Kadur and Ghosh both suffered setbacks in SS5. While Kadur was forced to retire after his Volkswagen Polo broke down, Ghosh’s Super SUV500 suffered a mechanical problem, forcing him to limp home in sixth place.

The duo’s troubles elevated Dean Mascarenhas’ (Sruptha Padival) INRC3 car to second in the overall table, while Rahul Kanthraj (Vivek Bhatt) claimed third after topping the final stage of the rally.

SS6 was cancelled due to a medical emergency in a nearby village.

After Rajasthan, the INRC championship heads to Ziro in Arunachal Pradesh for the fourth round of the season.