Overnight leaders Gaurav Gill and Musa Sherif, in a Mahindra XUV 500, today won the JK Tyre-powered Rally of Coimbatore, the second round of the FMSCI-Indian Rally Championship (IRC), by over two minutes.
Karnataka's Arjun Rao and Satish Rajagopal, in a VW Polo, bagged the second place overall and the top spot in the IRC 1600 category, while reigning Asia Pacific champion Gill's Mahindra Adventure teammates Sunny Sidhu and P V Srinivas Murthy were third.
During the run over the two Special Stages of 26.10 kms and 12.65 kms in Leg 2, Gill, winner of the opening round in Nashik last month, chose to drive cautiously.
"I didn't want to take any risks as I already had a good lead overnight," Gill said.
"I wanted to hold on to the lead and it just so happened that I was fastest in both the stages today," added India's top rally driver.
While the top three overnight leaders finished in that order, Team Yokohama's Vikram Devadasen and Shrikanth, in a VW Polo, turned in faster times in both Super Stages to finish fourth overall ahead of their Team Yokohama mates Rahul Kantharaj and Vivek Bhatt in a Mitsubishi Cedia.
Kantharaj and Bhatt topped the IRC 2000cc class, while Devadasen and Shrikanth finished second in the IRC 1600cc category.
Arjun Rao and Sathish were returning to action after missing the opening round in Nashik and the pair, winners of the INRC 1600 class last season and second in the overall category, turned in another impressive show.
B Raghu Nandan and K Suraj topped the FMSCI 1600cc Cup category.
Yesterday, 10 cars retired during leg one, including reigning National champion Amittrajit Ghosh and Ashwin Naik following mechanical problems.
