Gill, Musa top in Rally de Bengal

Gaurav Gill and co-driver Musa Sherif of Team Mahindra Adventure and in a XUV 500, scripted their 20th win together as they shrugged off a 16.6 second overnight deficit to annex the Overall title in the Rally de Bengal, the fourth round of the FMSCI Indian Rally Championship here Saturday.

Meanwhile, the Bangalore pair of Rahul Kanthraj and Vivek Bhatt of Team Yokohama, not only topped the IRC 2000 class, but also sealed the championship in their category with two rounds to spare. Yokohama too clinched the team championship.

Gill, trailing, made about 23 seconds on overnight leader Arjun Rao (Satish Rajagopal) in the day's first Special Stage and a further 27 seconds in the next to underline his status as India's premier Rally driver while chalking up the season's third win.

The success took Gill's championship tally to 145 while Rao, piloting Volkswagen Polo, moved past non-finishing Samir Thapar into second place on the leaderboard with 79.

With just two more rounds remaining and a maximum of 78 points on offer, Gill, the 2013 Asia Pacific title winner, and Sherif are poised to annex the Overall championship.

Rao, however, took the honours in the IRC 1600 class ahead of Mysore's Phalguna Urs (Anoop Kumar), sparing over four minutes. The result helped Rao to ease past Urs in the class championship with 115 points to 105.

Kanthraj, leading by over three minutes after Leg 1, expectedly clinched the title in the IRC 2000 class for their third win of the season to take his tally to 147 points which put him beyond the reach of Byram Godrej (Somayya AG) who remained on 68 after a non-finish here.

"It feels great to win the class championship for the first time since 2010 and also the team championship for Yokohama. We went through a very bad patch in the previous few seasons. So, it has been a tremendous year so far. The Yokohama tyres too have worked to our advantage," said Kanthraj.

In the FMSCI 1600 Cup, Adith KC (Harish KN) also consolidated his championship position with his second win of the season that took his tally to 137, well clear of Anirudha Ranganekar (Nitin Jacob) who finished second and third placed Parag Dhiwar (Aditya Dhiwar). Both Ranganekar and Dhiwar are tied on 94 points.

Provisional final classification:

IRC Overall: Gaurav Gill / Musa Sherif (Mahindra Adventure, XUV 500) 1 (1hr, 01min, 19.4secs); Arjun Rao / Satish Rajagopal (VW Polo) 2 (01:01:52.7); Sunny Sidhu / PVS Murthy (Mahindra Adventure, XUV 500) 3 (01:03:07.6).

IRC 2000: Rahul Kanthraj / Vivek Bhatt (Team Yokohama, Cedia) 1 (01:08:41.0); Saddam Ali / Chandan Sen 2 (01:18:37.2).

IRC 1600: Rao / Rajagopal 1 (01:01:52.7); Phalguna Urs / Anoop Kumar (VW Polo) 2 (01:06:12.2); Adith KC / Harish KN (Honda City V-Tec) 3 (01:08:47.5).

FMSCI 1600 Cup: Adith / Harish 1 (01:08:47.5); Aniruddha Ranganekar / Nitin Jacob (Maruti Baleno) 2 (01:17:44.4); Parag Dhiwar / Aditya Dhiwar (Maruti Baleno) 3 (01:18:02.4).