It was smooth sailing for Amittrajit Ghosh (co-driver Ashwin Naik), who was leading after the first leg of the 39th K-1000 Rally near here on Saturday. Driving a Mitsubishi Cedia, he clocked a total time of one hour, 3 minutes, 28.7 seconds and that is one minute, 28.8s seconds ahead of second-placed Prithvi Dominic (Pruthivi Sthal). Rahul Kanthraj (Vivek Bhatt) were third.
With just three stages remaining to be run on Sunday, Ghosh needs to just finish fourth to win the 2013 title. “I am just looking to finish the stages and not really worried about the stage times,” said Ghosh.
Second in the championship, Vikram Devadasen (George Verghese)’s Mitsubishi Cedia had a crash and landed upside down on the fifth stage.
However, the fastest time of the day was set by APRC champion Gaurav Gill (Musa Sherif), driving a Mahindra XUV500, in the SUV class with 1:00.57.3.
In the Junior class, MK Suhem (Jeevarathinam) was leading.
Provisional results (leg one, after six stages):
Overall and INRC 2000: 1. Amittrajit Ghosh/ Ashwin Naik (01:03:28.7s); 2. Prithvi Dominic/ Pruthivi Sthal (01:04:57.5s); 3. Rahul Kantharaj/ Vivek Y Bhatt (1:05.04.6).
INRC 1600: 1. Phalguna V Urs/ Anoop Kumar DS (1:05:46.5); 2. Aroor Arjun Rao/ Satish Rajagopal (01:05:59.5s); 3. Sirish Chandran/ Nikhil V Pai (01:06:04.4s).
IRC: 1. Karamjit Singh/ Jagdev Singh (01:01:45.5s); 2. Sumit Panjabi/ Prakhyath Shirole (01:16:47.1s); 3.
JNRC: 1. MK Suhem/ Jeevarathinam J (01:07:09.9s); 2. Aroor Vikram Rao/ AG Somayya (01:08:13.2s); 3. Philip Thomas/ Milen George Cherian 2 (01:10:15.2).
SUV NRC: 1. Gaurav Gill/ Musa Sherif (01:00:57.3s); 2. Sunny Sidhu/ PV Srinivas Murthy (01:03:02.2s); 3. Lohitt Urs/ Bonnie Thomas (01:04:00.1).
IRC: Karamjit Singh/Jagdev Singh (VW Polo R2, Slideways Industries) 1 (01:01:45.5); Sumit Panjabi/Prakhyath Shirole (Cedia) 2 (01:16:47.1).
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