IRC Rally of Coimbatore: Urs takes overall win, Gill forced to retire

Lohitt Urs and co-driver Srikanth Gowda took the overall win in the Rally of Coimbatore on Saturday.

Urs and Gowda (centre) were joined on the overall winners\' rostrum by Mahindra Adventure\'s Sunny Sidhu/PVS Murthy and Amittrajit Ghosh/Ashwin Naik.

Karna Kudur and co-driver Vivek Ponnusamy were fourth overall and winners of the IRC 1600 class.

With the defending FMSCI Indian Rally Championship (IRC) champion Gaurav Gill being forced to retire due to technical issues with his Mahindra Adventure XUV 500, former Mahindra driver and multiple rally winner Lohitt Urs and co-driver Srikanth Gowda, piloting a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII, triumphed in the overall standings of the Rally of Coimbatore on Saturday; which was the second round of the 2015 IRC season.

Mahindra's Sunny Sidhu and co-driver PVS Murthy and teammate and former national rally champion Amittrajit Ghosh and co-driver Ashwin Naik were second and third in the overall standings while Karna Kuddur and infamous co-driver Vivek Ponnusamy were fourth overall in their Volkswagen Polo and the winners of the IRC 1600 category.

Targeting a good performance in the Asia Cup round at Chikmaglur in December, Urs will be focusing on fine tuning his privately entered Evo VIII throughout the season until the IRC season finale, where former FIA Asia-Pacific Rally Championship champion Gill is expected to be driving his MRF-Skoda Super 2000-spec Fabia.

The IRC 2000 class was topped by the same trio who triumphed in the season-opening Rally of Maharashtra. Rahul Kanthraj/Vivek Bhatt in their Team Yokohama Mitsubishi Cedia were followed home by the Volkswagen Polo of Hrishikesh Thackersay/Mirajgaonkar and the Mitsubishi Cedia of Sumit Punjabi/Sagar M.

Behind Kadur, the top three of the IRC 1600 class was rounded out by two more Volkswagen Polos of Dr. Biku Babu/George Milen and Vikram Rao Aroor/AG Somayya.

Adith KC and co-driver Harish KN, who finished third in the FMSCI 1600 Cup, won the category in Coimbatore in their Honda City V-TEC ahead of Ashwin Reddy/Suraj M and Habib Mohammed/Shahid Salman, both of whom were also driving Honda City V-TECs.

IRC Overall:
Lohitt Urs/Srikanth Gowda (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII) 1Hr. 34mins. 59.1secs
Sunny Sidhu/PVS Murthy (Mahindra Adventure, Mahindra XUV 500) 1Hr. 39min. 27.6secs
Amittrajit Ghosh/Ashwin Naik (Mahindra Adventure, Mahindra XUV 500) 1Hr. 39min. 59.0secs

IRC 2000cc:
Rahul Kanthraj/Vivek Bhatt (Team Yokohama, Mitsubishi Cedia) 1Hr. 43mins. 06.5secs
Hrishikesh Thackersey/Ninad Mirajgaonkar (Volkswagen Polo) 1Hr. 44mins. 00.8secs
Sumit Panjabi/Sagar M (Mitsubishi Cedia) 1Hr. 46mins. 10.7secs

IRC 1600cc:
Karna Kuddur/Vivek Ponnusamy (Volkswagen Polo) 1Hr. 40mins. 30.5secs
Dr Biku Babu/George Milen (Volkswagen Polo) 1Hr. 42mins. 15.4secs
Vikram Rao Aroor/AG Somayya (Volkswagen Polo) 1Hr.42mins. 41.4secs

FMSCI 1600 Cup:
Adith KC/Harish KN (Kari Sports, Honda City V-Tec) 1Hr. 43mins. 53.2secs
Ashwin Reddy Daram/Suraj M (Rally Cross, Honda City V-TEC) 1Hr. 44mins. 49.7secs
Habib Mohammed/Shahid Salman (Honda City V-TEC) 1Hr. 45mins. 21.0secs