Team Maruti's Suresh Rana put up a dominant performance over the last six days to retain his title in the 11th Maruti Suzuki Desert Storm rally that culminated here today.
Starting the day with a comfortable lead, Rana eased through the desert terrain after early morning showers to bag his consecutive overall rally championship and third overall.
Rana finally ended the event with a splendid lead of 29.33 minutes over his closest competitor Chandigarh's Sunny Sidhu.
Driving a Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara along with his navigator Parminder Thakur, the Manali-lad emerged winner in the Xtreme category followed by Sidhu, who was driving for Mahindra & Mahindra.
"I am happy to win my second consecutive title. I had confidence going into the final leg. My aim was to save the vehicle. But as I started driving we didn't think about saving the vehicle," Rana said.
"Thereafter, I made a conscious effort not to yield even a minute. Fortunately, I was able to increase my lead till the last competitive stage," he said.
There was a change around in the Motoquad category, with Mohit Verma, who had been trailing Vijay Parmar, surging past his rival to win the event. Parmar finished second and Stephan Raush finished third.
Another M&M driver Lohitt Urs had to satisfy with the third position.
