The first leg of the 15th
edition of Maruti Suzuki Desert Storm culminated at Bikaner on January 30, 2017
as the participants covered a total distance of around 250km traversing through
the sandy dunes in the scorching sun from Hanumangarh to Bikaner crossing
Hardaswali and Arjansar.
In the extreme category,
Suresh Rana from Team Maruti was seen leading the rally by completing the leg
first along with his navigator Ashwin Naik in his Grand Vitara. He was closely
followed by Gaurav Chiripal and his navigator Srikanth Gowda and Sanjay Agarwal
with navigator, Shivaprakash who finished third.
In the Moto category, C. S
Santosh raced past his opponents to complete the leg first followed by Tanveer
Abdul Wahid and R Nataraj who came a close third. In the Ndure category,
Debajyoti Nath and Arindam Ghosh topped the charts in the first leg followed by
Nikunj Toshniwal and Suvrajit Dutta. Arpit Gupta and T Nagarajan came a close
third.
In the Explore category, Nipun
Agarwal along with his co-driver Kabir Mansharamani finished first, followed by
Jogendra Kumar Jaiswal and his co-driver Prasenjit Roy. Jagmeet Gill and
Chandan Sen from Team Maruti came in third.
The rally is expected to
travel towards Jaisalmer covering a total distance of around 500km with the
participants overcoming the challenging terrain towards the finish line.
DAY 1 RESULTS:
Extreme category:
Suresh Rana and Ashwin Naik
(from Team Maruti) – 1:11:42
Gaurav Chiripal and Srikanth
Gowda – 1:11:45
Sanjay Agarwal and
Shivaprakash – 1:15:38
Moto category:
C. S. Santosh – 00:41:29
Tanveer Abdul Wahid – 00:41:48
R Nataraj – 00:44:35
Below are the total penalties of the top three participants at the end
of Day 1 :
NDure category:
Debajyoti Nath and Arindam
Ghosh- 00:01:33
Nikunj Toshniwal and Suvrajit
Dutta-00:02:01
Arpit Gupta and T Nagarajan-
00:02:08
Xplore category
Nipun Agarwal and Kabir
Mansharamani- 00:00:52
Jogendra Kumar Jaiswal and
Prasenjit Roy-00:01:00
Jagmeet Gill and Chandan Sen
(from Team Maruti)- 00:01:03