Amittrajit, Ashwin win opening round

NEW DELHI: Amittrajit Ghosh and co-driver Ashwin Naik won the opening round of the Indian National Rally Championship (INRC), the Rally of Coimbatore on Sunday. Ghosh secured the first spot in 1 hour, 3 minutes and 15.1 seconds, followed by Sunny Sidhu and co-driver PVS Murthy, who recorded 1 hour, 3 minutes, 59.3 secs. Both drove Mahindra Adventure’s XUV 500.

Former champion Gaurav Gill and co-driver Musa Sherif, also of Mahindra, had a troubled start to the season, with a mechanical failure grinding them to a halt in the first special stage.

Gill was permitted to rejoin the rally in the third stage, but was not classified in the overall standings.

In the Indian Rally Championship (IRC) class, Samir Thapar and co-driver Gurinder Singh Mann of JCT Rallying won. Thapar clocked 1hr, 1m and 3.06s,