Maruti Suzuki Desert Storm 2018 has come to an end with Abhishek Mishra and Aaron Mare clinching the Xtreme and Moto titles respectively. The Desert Storm was extremely challenging for the participants this year and that was well demonstrated by the fact that the entire Maruti Suzuki Motorsport team could not finish. Abhishek Mishra finished with an overall time of 11:15:54 hours and was followed by Raj Singh Rathore but he was close to 35 minutes off the pace. Niju Padia from team Desert Raiders was third overall and he trailed Raj Singh Rathore by 45 minutes.
In the Moto category, Dubai based South African Aaron Mare from Angata Racing finished the rally with a time of 08:01:20 hours and fended off a challenge by TVS Racing’s Santolino Lorenzo who finished just five minutes adrift. At the start of the final stage, Santolino was separated by five minutes from the race leader but over a short 25km stage, it was going to be an uphill task to make up that time. Sanjay Kumar from Angata Racing joined his teammate on the podium and was 33 minutes behind Santolino.
The rally saw some high profile crashes and DNFs with racers like CS Santosh and Suresh Rana unable to finish.