Team Mahindra Adventure's Sunny Sidhu consolidated his leadership position in the Xtreme category on day five of the 12th Maruti Suzuki Desert Storm car rally, here today.
Sidhu, driving his modified factory-supported XUV 500, leads the pack with provisional cumulative timings of 12:10:44 hours and followed by two Maruti drivers Sandeep Sharma (12:26:09 hrs) and Amartej Pal Buwal (12:31:49 hrs).
Till now, the rally has covered the difficult terrains of Sardarshahar, Jaisalmer and Bikaner.
In Moto category, CS Santosh of Bangalore continued to lead with timings of 8:55:49 hours. Austria's Helmut Frauwallner (9:29:52 hrs) is second, followed by Suresh Babu (10:40:47 hrs).
Meanwhile, Satish Gopalkrishnan is way ahead in Ndure category at 17:05 minutes.
His closest competitor, Pratap Thakur, is at 28:33 minutes and is followed by Ashish Budhia, who is driving a Maruti Gypsy, at 41.42 minutes.
Defending champion Somdeb Chanda is fourth in the category at 54.17 minutes.
Rajesh Chalana and Yogesh Gupta lead the competition in the Xplore category of the event.
The number of competitors is the highest-ever this year, with 55 teams in Xtreme and 35 teams in Moto (both categories based solely on fastest timing), 35 teams in Ndure and 25 teams in Rally Xplore (both based on time-speed-distance format).
