2016 MARUTI SUZUKI NAT'L SUPERLEAGUE tsd CHAMPIONSHIP
The TSD rally championship comes to an end with Karthick Maruthi and co-driver Sankar Anand winning the championship
Maruthi wins the championship in a Maruti
WE HAVE SEEN Maruti Suzuki being an active supporter of motorsports in the country as they have been the title sponsors of all three rally raids – the Desert Storm, the Dakshin Dare and the Raid de Himalaya. While these mega events may occur annually, Maruti Suzuki took upon themselves the onus of organising a TSD championship series in 2016, in conjunction with Himalayan Motorsports, with the sole aim of spreading knowledge of motorsports in the country and coined it the Maruti Suzuki National Superleague TSD Championship.
Now since TSD rallying has been quite popular in the country, Maruti’s series was designed to be a pan-India initiative with six rounds of precision driving taking place over the course of the season. We in fact were privileged to be an active part for three rounds, albeit in the nonchampionship amateur class and took in the sights when the fourth round took place for the fifth Mughal rally.
With just two rounds left in the championship, Karthick Maruthi (with co-
driver Sankar S Anand) held a slender lead of 3 points in the championship standings from Sachin Singh (with co-driver Prakash M) with Maruthi winning the first two rounds of the series with ease in the Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza.
Maruthi though had a horrid time in the fifth round in Arunachal. He was penalised heavily in the first leg of the rally itself as he was imposed with a time penalty of an hour. While he did make very few mistakes in the two test stages as well as in the final leg, which he won, he couldn’t do anything about the deficit to the front runners and hence finished fourth in the rally. This allowed Jagmeet Singh (with co-driver Chandan Sen) to pick up their first win of the season with a penalty time of 7 minutes and 18 seconds. Ajgar Ali (with co-driver Mohd Musthafa) made few more errors than Singh and hence took second with a penalty time of 8 minutes and 41 seconds. Sachin Singh too made some errors on the opening day, but none so serious as his rival Maruthi. In the end, Sachin was happy to finish ahead of the championship leader and close the gap down to two points.
The original finale of the series was to have taken place in Gujarat but it was moved to Himachal Pradesh. The series finale received a healthy number of entries as nearly 23 cars lined up at the start of the Himachal rally.
Here’s where Maruthi brought his A-game to the party as he racked up his third win and consequently the 2016 title. He drove the Brezza to accumulate the least amount of penalties ending the rally with a penalty time of 6 minutes and 55 seconds. Sachin knew he would have had to win and Karthick would have had to finish off the podium for him to be crowned champion, but that wasn’t the case. In the end, he brought his Maruti Suzuki Swift home in second, picking up the runners-up spot in the championship. Ajgar Ali missied out on second by just 15 seconds and had to settle for the last spot on the podium.
“It has been an exciting year of rallying and sure I was putting my best efforts to win the championship. The win would not have been possible without the perfect combination of the driver, navigator and the car. I am extremely excited and cannot wait to come back for the next rally,” said the champion Maruthi. ⌧