Karna Kadur maintains pace to extend lead in APRC

CHENNAI: Bengaluru ace Karna Kadur came up with a mature drive to open a sizable lead in the FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship which is part of the Indu Chandhok Memorial 48th South India Rally, here on Saturday. With only four Special Stages to be run on Sunday, Kadur and his co-driver Musa Sherif have victory in their sights.

Kadur leads his Arka Motorsports team-mate and the Delhi-Himachal Pradesh combination of Harkrishan Wadia and Kunal Kashyap by over a minute. In third place is their team-mate and former National champion Amittrajit Ghosh (Ashwin Naik) who nursed his patched-up Volkswagen Polo, a late replacement for his Mahindra XUV 300 which blew its engine during a test run a few days before the event.

In the INRC category of the Blueband FMSCI Indian National Rally Championship Round-1, Kadur leads Ghosh with Suhem Kabeer (Vinay Padmashali) in third spot.

About his performance, Kadur said: “I was a bit conservative in the first loop, especially the first Special Stage (AAVISA) which had some small rocks on the road. In the second run, I did not hold back since I knew the terrain would have been swept clean by the cars. So, I was able to make over a minute on my own time.”

Two of the front-runners in the APRC, Jason Saldanha and Chetan Shivram had issues with their respective cars and lost time that saw them drop down the order. The other big disappointment was the retirement of Hyundai i20 which is making its debut in the Indian motorsports scene with Hyderabad’s Jeet Jhabakh packing up with a driveshaft problem but he is likely to rejoin the rally on Sunday, if the car is fully repaired.

Meanwhile, the competition in the National championship was as razor sharp as ever with positions changing by the minute while Bengaluru-based Tarushi Vikram displayed impressive pace to lead the Women INRC class.

Provisional, unaudited classifications (After Leg-1):

FIA-APRC/Overall: 1. Karna Kadur / Musa Sherif (Arka Motorsports) (01 hr, 05 min, 25.4 secs); 2. Harkrishan Wadia / Kunal Kashyap (Arka Motorsports) (01:06:34.2); 3. Amittrajit Ghosh / Ashwin Naik (Arka Motorsports) (01:06:39.8)

INRC: 1. Kadur / Sherif; 2. Ghosh / Naik; 3. Suhem Kabir / Vinay Padmashali (Pvt.) (01:09:03.9)

INRC2: 1. Wadia / Kashyap; 2. Philippos Matthai / Harish KN (Arka Motorsports) (01:06:51.3); 3. Fabid Ahmer / Milen George (Chettinad Sporting) (01:06:56.1)

INRC3: 1. Arnav Pratap Singh / Rohit N (SNAP Racing) (01:07:37.8); 2. Vishak B / Chiranth Jain (Chettinad Sporting) (01:07:52.8); 3. Abin Rai / Moideen Jasheer KM (Pvt.) (01:08:34.1)

INRC 3T (Turbo): 1. C Ramcharan / Vignesh Mahalingam (01:14:40.1)

Women INRC: 1. Tarushi Vikram / Vybhav Mukund Rao (01:11:51.0)