South India Rally postponed to June amid Covid-19 pandemic

The South India Rally scheduled to be held here from March 20 to 22 has been postponed to June owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Organised by the Madras Motor Sports Club, the South India Rally doubles up as a round of the FIA Asia-Pacific Rally Championship and the FMSCI Indian National Rally Championship (four-wheelers).

"After much discussion internally, and following the lockdown in various states and territories across India, besides travel advisories and restrictions on public assembly, we have decided to postpone South India Rally to June 19-21," Chairman of the event, Vicky Chandhok said on Sunday.

"We were confident of running the event on schedule as we had put in place all measures and infrastructure complying with Government of India's health advisories to provide a safe environment to all the stakeholders.

"However, developments in the past couple of days forced us to rethink and decide on postponing South India Rally," added Chandhok, who is also the president of APRC Working Group.

The organisers had earlier on Friday announced that the event would go ahead but without spectators.

The coronavirus pandemic, which has so far claimed over 6000 lives globally, has played havoc with sports calender across the world, resulting in cancellation or postponement of numerous events.