Gaurav Gill and Mahindra seal Indian Rally Championship title

With less than ten days before his 33rd birthday, 2013 FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship winner Gaurav Gill added a fourth Indian Rally Championship crown to his resume with a win at the 40th running of the K-1000 rally in Bangalore today.

Gill and co-driver Musa Sherif overcame an overheating problem on his Mahindra Super XUV 500 on the first leg of the rally yesterday that put him in fourth place overall behind his Mahindra Adventure teammates Sunny Sidhu/PV Murthy and Amitrajit Ghosh/Ashwin Naik.

After sorting out the problem Gill managed to charge up the classification to finish the first leg just 2.2 seconds behind Sidhu.

His impressive pace was carried forward today as he ended the rally 22 seconds ahead of his teammate to not only seal the title for himself but also for the Mahindra Adventure team that first took the plunge in domestic rallying (either cross country or weekend based events) in 2012.

The diesel powered XUV 500 was the dominant package in the IRC this year with Samir Thapar offering only a fleeting challenge in his rally-spec Mitsubishi Evo X whenever the terrain of a particular rally suited his car.

Arjun Rao Aroor and co-driver Satish Rajgopal were forced to retire after the opening stage of the rally when a piston of their R2-spec Volkswagen Polo burst out of the engine block.

Karna Kadur and co-driver Sujith Kumar B.S. won the IRC 2000 class of the rally while Phalguna Urs and co-driver Anoop Kumar triumphed in the IRC 1600 class.