Gaurav Gill to defend FIA APRC title

Former Indian National Rally Championship (INRC) title holder and winner of the SUV INRC category last year Gaurav Gill will return to the FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship (APRC) this year to defend the title he won with Team MRF Skoda in a Super 2000 spec Fabia with co-driver Glen MacNeall.

Gill will be partnered by the defending FIA European Rally Championship (ERC) title holder Jan Kopecky of the Czech Republic.

Thirty-two-year-old Kopecky won six rallies on the ERC calendar last year en route to the title last year with the facotry Skoda team behind the wheel of a car identical to the one with which Gill defeated his APRC teammate Esapekka Lappi, a former Finnish rally champion who competed in the ERC and the WRC-2 category of the World Rally Championship as well last year, winning in his category in Portugal.

Gill had previously told autoX that he would continue to compete in the APRC while being backed by long-time sponsor MRF Tyres but that he had his sights set firmly on competing in the WRC-2 category or at the very least the ERC.

Following his appearance as a guest driver in the final round of the MRF Challenge in Chennai towards the end of February, Gill had left for Portugal for a test with Prodrive (managers of Subaru's world rally team prior to their departure from WRC) in Portugal to test a WRC-spec Mini.

Gill previously competed in the Production category of the WRC in 2008 and 2009 before financial difficulties forced him to prematurely end his participation in WRC weekends and focus on the APRC.