The fifth and final round of the Indian National Rally Championship concluded on December 16. This round was held in Cochin and had the drivers battling it out in the picturesque, narrow roads of the “Popular Rally”.
The first stage saw Younus Ilyas beating Gaurav Gill by two seconds. Our very own editor and resident dirt slinger Sirish Chandran was back in a rally car after four long years, along with his co-driver Aniruddha Rangnekar. The duo did start out a bit slow, finishing the stage at the sixth position and Amitrajit Ghosh warming up with this stage at the tenth position. The next stage had Younus lose out to Dr.Bikku Babu and Milen George by a couple of seconds while Gaurav slipped to the third position.
As the stages progressed, the competition only grew fiercer. With Gill starting out at 62 points, only a point more than his teammate, Amitrajit who managed to take the lead after the first four rounds. His victory didn’t last long as he slipped to the second place owing to the N-1 rule.
Meanwhile, our editor Sirish Chandran was getting up to the pace and rattling the stage times. After finishing the first stage at sixth position, the fifth stage saw him get to the second position after Gill by a margin of three seconds. Sirish, led the eighth stage with an impressive time of 00:06:02.3, Gill managed to finish the stage a second later. Mahindra’s Amitrajit climbed to the fourth position in this stage.
The stage 11 saw Karna Kadur and Nikhil Vittal Pai bagging the fastest time at 00:07:03.2 followed by Dr. Bikku. The final stage had Sirish leading the class with an impressive 2.5 seconds lead over Gill.
The final standing had Gaurav Gill and Musa Sherif of Team Mahindra Adventure take the first place which was their sixth INRC trophy followed by Younus and Harish of Race Concepts Motorsports.
Here are the race results:
OVERALL – INRC
1 Gaurav Gill | Musa Sherif (Team Mahindra Adventure; 01:29:58.9)
2 Younus Ilyas | Harish KN (Race Concepts Motorsport; 01:30:33.1)
3 Karna Kadur | Nikhil V Pai (Arka Motorsports; 01:30:54.4)
INRC 1
1 Gaurav Gill | Musa Sherif (Team Mahindra Adventure; 01:29:58.9)
2 Sirish Chandran | A A Rangnekar (Sirish Chandran; 01:31:17.1)
3 Amittrajit Ghosh | Ashwin Naik (Team Mahindra Adventure; 01:31:51.6)
INRC 2
1 Younus Ilyas | Harish KN (Race Concepts Motorsport; 01:30:33.1)
2 Karna Kadur | Nikhil Vittal Pai (Arka Motorsports; 01:30:54.4)
3 Phalguna Urs | Srikanth GM (Snap Racing; 01:33:00.4)
INRC 3
1 Dean Mascarenhas | Shruptha Padival (01:33:07.9)
2 Fabid Ahmer | Sanat G (Chettinad Sporting; 01:34:47.4)
3 Darius N Shroff | Shahid Salman (01:35:20.6)
FMSCI 2WD CUP
1 Vikram Gowda | Sudhundra B.G (Vikram Gowda; 01:39:08.9)
2 Suraj Thomas | Sob (Suraj Thomas; 01:40:57.8)
3 Lanusanen Pongener | Amrith (Amrith; 01:41:33.4)