Former national rally champion Gaurav Gill has clinched the 2013 FIA Asia-Pacific Rally Championship (APRC) title along with co-driver Glenn Macneall after finishing the first day of the China Rally today.
Gill trails at the event behind his MRF Skoda teammate Esapekka Lappi by four minutes but he is crucially well clear of Sanjay Takale, who was his closest challenger for the APRC title.
Gill becomes the first Indian rally driver to win the APRC title and erased the memories of a championship near-miss in 2010 where he lost out to former teammate Katsuhiko Taguchi despite requiring to just finish the final round of the championship (again, in China).
Gill first started to compete in the APRC for MRF in 2007 and won his first rally in the championship in Indonesia in 2008.
After the retirement of perennial winner Cody Crocker at the end of the 2009 season, Gill was the favourite to win the title in 2010 as the Super 2000-spec Protons of Alister McRae and Chris Atkinson suffered reliability problems.
The APRC field, including Gill, were outgunned by the Protons in 2011 before the MRF team stopped using a Group N-spec Mitsubishi in favour of a Super 2000-spec Skoda Fabia in 2012.
However, Gill missed out on the title again in 2012 to his MRF teammate Chris Atkinson before coming good this year that saw Proton withdraw from the APRC and Atkinson choosing to not defend his title.
Gill was paired with 22-year-old Lappi, who won the Finnish national rally title last year. The inexperienced Lappi won two of the five APRC rallies held so far, but retiring from the other three.
Gill participated briefly in the Production World Rally Championship (PWRC) in 2008 and 2009 before issues with funding and an alleged dispute between MRF and PWRC team Sidvin caused him to focus entirely on the APRC as far as international rallying went.
Write your Comment