By IANS,
Chandigarh : The tussle for top honours resumes in the FMSCI-JK Tyre Indian National TSD Rally Championship that gets underway here Saturday with Tata Motors Full Throttle team’s Satish Gopalkrishnan and co-driver Savera D’Souza hoping to catch up with leader Karthick Maruthi (Sankar Anand).
Gopalkrishnan and Savera, the husband-wife combination from Bangalore, who will be in a Tata Sumo Grande, are on 60 points in both Overall and Pro-Expert categories while Maurthi and Anand have 67 and 71, respectively.
Behind the leaders in third place with 45 (Overall) and 49 points (Pr-Expert) are Full Throttle’s Sachin Singh and M Chandrasekar who too will be in a Tata Sumo Grande.
Thus far, Gopalkrishnan and Savera have dominated the Pro-Expert class with two wins in Bangalore and Kohima, but a non-finish in Jaipur and fourth in Ranchi cost them crucial points.
“It was good to win in Kohima where the event was run as part of the Hornbill Festival. The victory there put our campaign back on track after two disappointing rounds when we dropped points in Ranchi and Jaipur. Hopefully, we will be able to replicate our Kohima showing in Chandigarh,” said Gopalkrishnan.
Maruthi and Anand took the honours in Jaipur after two consecutive second place finishes, but collected only six points in Kohima, while Sachin Singh and Chandrasekar won in Ranchi.
The scenario is in sharp contrast to the Pro-Stock category where Full Throttle’s Chidananda Murthy and co-driver BS Sujith Kumar from Bangalore are comfortably perched at the top with a tally of 90 points after three wins and a third place finish, well clear of team-mates S Gopalkrishnan and V Sekar who are on 48.
“Although we are well-placed, there is no room for complacency as there are still two rounds, including this one, and in motorsport, anything can happen. So, we don’t want to take any chances. A win here should help us clinch the title,” said Murthy.
Full Throttle, who are fielding a seven-car team, including the all-woman tandem of Dipali Poddar and Ipsita Das from Kolkata, appear set to clinch the team honours too as they have garnered 173 points, compared to Volkswagen’s 71 and Mahindra’s 31.