Itanagar, Dec 20 (IANS): Gaurav Gill proved to be the king of the mountains once again, winning Round 2 of the Champions Yacht Club FMSCI Indian National Rally Championship, the Rally of Arunachal, here on Sunday evening.
Chaperoned by his trusted navigator Musa Sherif, the Arjuna Awardee ruled each of the eight Special Stages over the weekend, to make it a grand double for JK Tyre supported drivers in two back-to-back rounds over four action-packed days.
Gill's teammates too emerged with flying colours, with Amittrajit Ghosh (co-driver Ashwin Naik) following him home in the overall INRC class while Dean Mascarenhas claimed the INRC 2 title; Fabid Ahmer and Maninder Singh Prince finished second and third in INRC 3 to make it a near sweep.
"It feels good to be rallying again. With the COVID 19 situation and then Mahindra pulling out, it was a tricky situation for us. But with JK Tyre's support and Mahindra offering us their XUV300, things soon fell in place for us," Amittrajit said. "It was a great round for me because after a long time I made it to the podium," he pointed out.
Former INRC champion Karna Kadur, backed by MRF, too underscored his mettle, cruising to the third position in the overall elite class. He had finished second in Round 1 two days earlier with Nikhil Pai.
In the Junior INRC category, Harikrishna Wadia (& Chirag Thakur) claimed the top position, followed by Arjun (& Shanmuga SN). Team Vasundhara's Pragathi Gowda (& Deeksha Balakrishna) impressed yet again, taking the third place.
Provisional Results:
Overall: 1. Gaurav Gill /Musa Sherif (42 minutes, 15.000 seconds); 2. Amittrajjit Ghosh/Ashwin Naik (43:48.100); 3. Karna Kadur/Nikhil Pai (44: 57.300);
INRC2: 1. Dean Mascarenhas/ Shruptha Padival (45:38.600); 2. Sahil Khanna /Vidit Jain (47:42.000); 3. Rahul Kantharaj/ Vivek Bhat (47:45.800);
INRC3: 1. Aditya Thakur/ Virender Kashyap (47:21.500); 2. Fabid Ahmer/ Eldo Chacko (47:30.800); 3. Maninder Singh Prince/ Vinay Padmashali (48:06.400);
INRC4: 1. Mujeeb Rehman/ Goutham CP (50:42.300); 2. Vaibhav Marathe/ Suhan MK (51:28.800); 3. Rohith Iyer/ GM Manjunath (54:21.600)