INDIA in F1

Tag: Rally of Coimbatore

  • Philippos Matthai wins INRC2, claims stunning overall 2nd; Third win for Aroor Arjun Rao

    Philippos Matthai wins INRC2, claims stunning overall 2nd; Third win for Aroor Arjun Rao

    Coimbatore, 30 July 2023: Philippos Matthai, the Delhi Daredevil from Team Speedsport, claimed a stunning victory in the INRC2 class and finished ahead of many higher-spec cars with an Overall second, even as Aroor Arjun Rao continued his winning spree in the top Overall class annexing the Rally of Coimbatore, the third round of the Blueband fmsci Indian National Rally Championship (INRC) 2023 for four-wheelers which concluded here at the Kethanur Windmill farms on Sunday.

    Hat-trick of INRC wins: Aroor Arjun Rao and Sathish Rajagopal en route to a big win in the Rally of Coimbatore at the Kethanur Windmill farms on Sunday. Photo by Rahul Reghu

    Team Mandovi Racing’s Aroor Arjun Rao with co-driver Satish Rajagopal put in a consistent performance to notch up his third Overall victory in as many rounds and retained his Championship lead while Philippos Matthai and co-driver PV Srinivasa Murthy in a Volkswagen Polo prepared by Leelakrishnan of Arka Motorsports powered to the top of the podium winning INRC2 and beat all the other top-spec INRC cars except that of Arjun Rao in the Overall standings. In the last round in Arunachal Pradesh, Philippos finished second in INRC2 and came Overall 5th after a forgettable first round in the South India Rally where he was forced to pullout within 2-km of the finish due to mechanical problems while leading second Overall.

    Pre-event favourites Arjun Awardee Gaurav Gill (Aniruddha Rangnekar) and defending champion Karna Kadur (Nikhil Pai) failed to finish the rally.

    “With a calculated strategy we garnered as many points as possible in the previous two rallies and our consistent and steady performance helped as we are back on the top in our class. I am very happy and with three more rallies to go, our target is to win the championship,” said the 39-year four-time National champion in different motorsports disciplines. The lawyer by education and car-builder and rally driver by passion, Philippos is remembered for driving the medical chase car at the F1 Grands Prix races held at Buddh International Circuit in 2012 and 2013.

    Philippos Matthai and PVS Murthy in the windmill section… Photo by Rahul Reghu

    Talented Chandigarh driver Jahaan Singh Gill along with Suraj Keshav Prasad won the INRC3 class ahead of Jason Saldanha of Mangaluru with co-driver Thimmu Uddapanda, who last week got on to the podium of RAAT the Rally of Thailand in their class.

    Aroor Arjun Rao, left, and Sathish Rajagopal, after sweeping all the three rounds, celebrate in Coimbatore on Sunday. Supplied photo

    Ruthuparna Vivek and co-driver Athreya Kousgi claimed INRC4 category beating Shirole Prakhyat and Bharath SM by a huge distance. Behind them the Chikkamagaluru paid of Prajwal HM and Vinay SM finished in third place.

    Dehradun’s Anushriya Gulati with a new co-driver in Sherwin Dalmeida of Managaluru won the Ladies class. Representing Dark Don Rallying, the duo had a huge lead over second-placed Nikeetaa Takkale (Venu Ramesh Kumar). Mumbai’s Shivani Parmar and Bengaluru”s Arjun Dheerendra of Chettinad Sporting finished third.

    Provisional Results:  Final Unaudited Classification:

    Overall: 1. Aroor Arjun Rao, Mangaluru / Satish Rajagopal, Bengaluru (Mandovi Racing) 1:53:48.4;

    2. Philippos Matthai, Delhi/ PVS Murthy, Bengaluru (Arka Motorsports) 1: 54:20.0;

    3. Amittrajit Ghosh, Kolkata/ Ashwin Naik, Mangaluru (Arka Motorsports) 1: 54: 31.1;

    INRC:

    1. Aroor Arjun Rao, Mangaluru / Satish Rajagopal, Bengaluru (Mandovi Racing) 1:53:48.4;

    2. Amittrajit Ghosh, Kolkata/ Ashwin Naik, Mangaluru (Arka Motorsports) 1: 54: 31.1.

    3. Rahul Kanthraj Vivek Y Bhatt (Both Bengaluru) (Arka Motorsports) 1: 55: 39.1;

    INRC2:

    1. Philippos Matthai, Delhi/ PVS Murthy, Bengaluru (Arka Motorsports) 1: 54:20.0;

    2. Fabid Ahmer/ Sanath G, both Palakkad (Chettinad Sporting)  1:54:37.7;

    3. Dr Bikku Babu / Milen George, Both Ernakulam, (Chettinad Sporting) 1:55.00.3;

    INRC3:

    1. Jahan Singh Gill, Chandigarh/ Suraj Keshav Prasad, Bengaluru (Snap Racing) 1:55:37.6;

    2. Jason Saldanha, Bengaluru/ Thimmu Uddapanda, Coorg(Dark Don Rallying) 1: 55:45.3;

    3. Daraious Shroff, Mumbai/ Shahid Salman, Bengaluru(Chettinad Sporting) 1:57:04.5.

    INRC4:

    1. Ruthuparna Vivek/ Athreya Kousgi, Privateers, both Chikkamagaluru 2: 03:10.5;

    2. Shirole H Prakhyat/ Bharath SM, Both Bengaluru, 2:06:32.6;

    3. Prajwal HM/ Vinay SM, pvt, both Chikkamagaluru, 2:12:40.6;

    Gypsy: 

    1. Darshan Nachappa/ Abhinav Ganapathy (Both Coorg) Ammyfied Rallying, 2:06:10.7;

    2. Abhishek Gowda, Chikkamagaluru/ Dheeraj Manae, Pvt, Bengaluru 2:07:29.6;

    3.Jayanth Somanathan/ R Rajashekar, Pvt,  2:12:16.0.

    Ladies class:

    1. Anushriya Gulati, Dehradun/ Sherwin Dalmeida, Mangaluru, (Dark Don Rallying) (1:49:14.2);

    2. Nikeetaa Takkale, Pune/ Venu Ramesh Kumar, Coimbatore (Ammyfied Rallying) (2:02:18.4);

    3. Shivani Parmar, Mumbai/ Arjun Dheerendra, Bengaluru (Chettinad Sporting) (2:22:47.0).

    Junior INRC:

    1. Jahan Singh Gill, Chandigarh/ Suraj Keshav Prasad, Bengaluru (Snap Racing) (1:55:37.6);

    2. Ajay Sankar, Kollam/ Nitharshan, Kollakurichi, pvt, (1:59:21.7);

    3. Nikeetaa Takkale, Pune/ Venu Ramesh Kumar, Coimbatore (Ammyfied) 2:02:18.4);

    (Note: Results corrected after release of Official results)

  • Aditya Thakur & Virender Kashyap clinch Rally of Coimbatore in style: INRC Ro.1

    Aditya Thakur & Virender Kashyap clinch Rally of Coimbatore in style: INRC Ro.1

    Coimbatore, 27 Feb 2022: Aditya Thakur, a farmer from Himachal Pradesh, along with his co-driver Virender Kashyap, scripted a dream-win in the Rally of Coimbatore, the first round of the FMSCI Indian National Rally Championship 2021 of which MRF Tyres is the Associate Sponsor, here on Sunday.

    The overall result changed after the Stewards meeting which disqualified Maninder Singh Prince and co-driver Vinay Padmashali for removing their car from Parc Ferme at a time when it would amount to an infringement. Thus, defending champions in their class Sahil Khanna and Harish moved to Overall third place. Read the report here.

    It was a day of dramatic twists and turns as the tricky Special Stages took a heavy toll of the top contenders in the Coimbatore Auto Sports Club-organised season-opener. Favourite and 7-times National champion Gaurav Gill (Musa Sherif), overnight leader Karna Kadur (Nikhil Pail), Amittrajit Ghosh (Ashwin Naik) who led briefly today after moving up from overnight fourth, and Dean Mascarenhas (Gagan Karumbaiah), who was placed third overall going into Leg-2 today, dropped out due to various issues with their vehicles, thus opening up the path for 32-year old Thakur’s maiden win.  

    Thakur, taking part in the INRC-3 category but eligible for Overall classification, thus notched his maiden Overall win in a National Championship since his INRC debut in 2018, also at Coimbatore. “I am absolutely delighted with my maiden win in the National championship. We made a small mistake yesterday which put us in second position overnight. Today, I decided to just go for it and did not back off though I was a bit careful.

    “The MRF tyres were simply fantastic in terms of the grip and durability. Also, Chettinad Sporting built this car like a tank. So, I was able to push. A big thanks also to Sanjay Sikand (ex-Rally driver) whose birthday it is today, for nurturing my skills from when I was eight years old. My family and friends who pooled in some money to help me take part in the championship, were of a great support,” said an emotional Thakur.

    Meanwhile, Gill, who had retired yesterday with an electrical problem, but rejoined today under the Super Rally format, was the quickest for much of the day until his second retirement while Palakkad’s Fabid Ahmer (G Sanath) was among the most impressive performers on the day by clocking some fast times which took him up the leaderboard and finish Overall second, and first in INRC-2 category.

    A very dejected Kadur said: “We had to pack up due to some electrical issues which we are trying to understand and sort out. We started having issues like drop in power towards the end of today’s first Stage. Then, two Kms into the second Stage, the car stalled entering a corner. We tried everything to start and continue, but just couldn’t. It is another learning lesson, though expensive in terms of losing from a winning position.”

    The winners in the other categories were: Mujeeb Rehman (Ravindra Kumar) in INRC-4, Raghuram Saminathan (Bharath Sargur) in Junior INRC and Rupender Sheoran (Mohit Malik) in FMSCI Gypsy Challenge.

    Provisional results (after Leg-2):

    Overall / INRC: 1. Aditya Thakur / Virender Kashyap (both Himachal) (02Hrs, 03mins, 29.5secs); 2. Fabid Ahmer / G Sanath (both Palakkad) (02:04:29.2); 3.Maninder Singh Prince (Delhi) / Vinay Padmashali (Bengaluru) (02:04:36.8). 3. Sahil Khanna (Gurugram) / Harish KN (Bengaluru) (02:05:03.4); (Note: Result revised after Stewards meeting penalty, late evening)

    INRC-2: 1. Fabid Ahmer / G Sanath (both Palakkad) (02:04:29.2); 2. Sahil Khanna (Gurugram) / Harish KN (Bengaluru) (02:05:03.4); 3. Aroor Vikram Rao / AG Somayya (both Mangaluru) (02:06:25.7);

    INRC-3: 1. Aditya Thakur / Virender Kashyap (both Himachal) (02:03:29.5); 2. Maninder Singh Prince (Delhi) / Vinay Padmashali (Bengaluru) (02:04:36.8); 3. Syed Salman Ahmed (Mysuru) / Rishab BK (Mangaluru) (02:06:08.6).

    INRC-4: 1. Mujeeb Rehman (Kasargod) / Ravindra Kumar (Bengaluru) (02:12:18.3); 2. Deepak Chandra / Kenith Harsha (both Bengaluru) (02:24:39.6); 3. P Ananth Kumar / GM Manjunath (both Bengaluru) (02:29:18.0).

    Junior INRC (only 2 finishers): 1. Raghuram Saminathan (Coimbatore) / Bharath Sargur (Bengaluru) (02:17:16.5); 2. Shivani Pruthvi (Davangere) / Deeksha Balakrishna (Bengaluru) (02:22:45.2).

    FMSCI Gypsy Challenge: 1. Rupender Sheoran (Gurugram) / Mohit Malik (Faridabad) (02:13:46.0); 2. Sanjay Agarwal / Smitha Prasad (both Bengaluru) (02:15:17.7); 3. Mettuchetty Venkatapathy / S Santosh Kumar (both Coimbatore) (02:17:15.4).