Dominant Santolino wins India Baja rally
JAISALMER: TVS Racing’s Lorenzo Santolino remained dominant throughout the five Special Stages (SS) to convincingly win the Moto (two-wheeler) category of cross country rally India Baja 2018 here on Sunday.
The Spanish rider, who was in the lead following the first three SS on Saturday, continued his run to outperform every other biker and win the extreme motorsport event in a cumulative time of three hours, 38 minutes and 46 seconds, thereby winning a provisional ticket to Dakar 2020.
Overcoming the rough trails, sand dunes and extreme heat of the Thar Desert, Santolino completed SS4 in 1:08.45 and SS5 in 23.52, the longest and shortest stages of the rally, respectively.
Indian rider CS Santosh of Hero MotoSports Team Rally finished second in 4:03.18. Though he challenged Santolino in every SS, Santosh was handed a time penalty of 30 minutes for crucially missing a passage corner of the rally, hampering his overall timing. However, despite the penalty, Santosh did enough to finish on the second step of the podium.
Rally debutant Harith Noah of TVS Racing grabbed a surprising third place finish by clocking 4:33.07, finishing just three seconds ahead of teammate and last year’s third place finisher Abdul Wahid Tanveer. However, Tanveer’s 15-minute penalty for losing his time card was overturned, handing him the final podium spot.
Saikia wins
Meanwhile, Arindam Saikia, with navigator J Jeevarathinam, won the Xtreme (four-wheeler) category with a cumulative time of 5:08.48 in their Polaris. Himanshu Arora of Harjee Motorsport finished the rally in second place with navigator Kunal Kashyap, while team Desert Raiders’ Narayan Balan, accompanied by Chirag Thakur, finished in third place.