Motorsports: Satish and Savera close in on leaders

National TSD Rally champions Satish Gopalkrishnan and navigator Savera D'Souza closed in on leaders Karthik Maruthi and Sankar Anand in the Overall classification of Endurance category at the end of the third leg in the 5th Maruti Suzuki Dakshin Dare Rally here Wednesday.

However, the top two pairs have Kolkata's Sudhip Kumar Ghosh and Arindam Ghosh in their rearview mirrors as just 11 seconds separate the top three.

The husband-wife combination of Gopalkrishnan and D'Souza from Bangalore, enjoyed a good run on Wednesday to slip past the Kolkata duo and come within five seconds of Maruthi and Anand.

Also gaining a place were Erode's Ganesh Moorthy and T. Nagarajan who gained a position to lie second behind Sudhip Kumar and Arindam in the Car Open category while Babno Machaiah and Natarajan dropped one spot to third.

The Endurance participants began the third leg in Ooty Wednesday morning and wended their way to Coimbatore where the remaining two legs will be run before finishing in Bangalore on Friday.

Provisional classification (Leg 2 - Endurance):

Overall: Karthik Maruthi/Sankar Anand (Mahindra Scorpio) 1 (1min, 17secs penalty); Satish Gopalkrishnan/Savera D'Souza (Grand Vitara) 2 (0:01:22); Sudhip Kumar Ghosh/Arindam Ghosh (Maruti Esteem) 2 (0:01:28).

SUV Open: Maruthi/Anand 1; Gopalkrishnan/D'Souza 2; K Prasad/Nishanth 3 (0:04:37).

Car Open: Sudhip Kumar Ghosh/Arindam Ghosh 1; Ganesh Moorthy/T. Nagarajan (Mahindra Logan) 2 (0:01:32); Babno Machaiah/Natarajan (Esteem) 3 (0:03:09);

Car OE: Palghuna Raghavendra/Jeevarathinam (VW Polo) 1 (0:06:45); Saurav Chatterjee/Ashoke Bhattacharya (Esteem) 2 (0:10:51); Sai Prasad/Ganesh (Baleno) 3 (0:11:12).

Manufacturer (Suzuki Maruti): Jagmeet Gill/Musthafa (Maruti Gypsy) 1 (0:01:40); Somdeb Chanda /Amit Saha (SX4) 2 (0:02:26); Ravi Chutani/Anurag Shukla (SX4) 3 (0:42:26).

Corporate: Pavan AK/Sagar (Scorpio) 1 (0:03:37); Philip Baklin/David Sharon (Chevrolet) 2 (0:08:11); Manjunath GM/Avinash (Esteem) 3 (0:10:28).

Couples: Sreejith PA/Krishnaveni KC (Maruti Baleno) 1 (0:08:19). All Ladies: Gauri Gupta/ Poulami Dutta (Esteem) 1 (1hr, 7mins, 31secs).