The opening day of the Dakshin Dare 2018 was a tough run for Team Maruti Suzuki Motorsport on the opening day with Suresh Rana and Samrat Yadav losing time due to a puncture.
However, the Team was only warming up, as Sandeep Sharma picked up pace is yesterday’s stages in Chitradurga for a fourth-place finish while Samarat Yadav finished only a few minutes behind him in the fifth position.
“I did not have the best of starts to the rally. But I am glad that I could get back into the fray. Our team (Maruti Suzuki) has its hopes pinned on me and I am quite sure that I will keep improving and fight till the end to defend my title,” Rana said.
10-time Raid de Himalaya champion Suresh Rana who was in 11th position during the first leg made up a considerable amount of time to grab the sixth position behind his teammates. This is the first time Sandeep Sharma and Samrat Yadav are piloting these modern cars which are poles apart compared to their usual weapon, the Gypsy. Both the drivers are getting grips of the cars, especially Samrat who is running an All-Grip (AWD) S-Cross which is built to perform better in harsh conditions.
Stay tuned as the machines go out for another few stages in Chitradurga before they head out to Belgaum!