Maruti Suzuki Desert Storm 2018 takes over the sand dunes of Bikaner on Day 1

In the Xtreme category, Suresh Rana from Team Maruti Suzuki Motorsport was seen leading the rally by completing the leg first along with his navigator PVS Murthy in his Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara. Following their lead was Aabhishek Mishra and his navigator V Venu Rameshkumar and Gaurav Chiripal with navigator, Srikanth Gowda who finished third.

Below is the total time of the top three participants from the NDure and Xplore category, at the end of Day 1:

NDure category:

1. Desert Raiders: Lt Col Sukhjeet Singh Dhaliwal & Lenin J (Penalty - 00:21:00)

2. Desert Raiders: Gurpinder Singh & Mrinmoy Saha (Penalty - 0:21:55)

3. Ruchit Jadhaw & Aditya Garg (Penalty - 0:22:34)

Xplore category

1. Nipun Agrawal & Kabir Mansharamani (Penalty - 00:09:07)

2. Desert Raiders: Vishal Choudhary & Abhivek Singh Godara (Penalty - 01:13:12)

3. Surendra Gopu & Hardeep Singh (Penalty - 01:30:04)

Maruti Suzuki Desert Storm 2018 will now move towards Jaisalmer for the second leg of the rally.

Headlight failure forces Aishwarya Pissay to retire from Desert Storm

A malfunctioning headlight ended National women’s racing and rally champion Aishwarya Pissay’s campaign in the Maruti Suzuki Desert Storm as she was docked a penalty of 100 hours, forcing her to retire from the week-long cross-country rally.

Bengaluru-based 22-year old Aishwarya, representing TVS Racing team, was among 11 bikers who retired in Leg-1 which comprised two Special Stages totaling about 80 Kms.

Hero MotoSports Team Rally starts with a win on day 1

Hero Motosports Team Rally rider, C S Santosh made a solid start in the Maruti Suzuki Desert Storm 2018 by closing the day one on 1st position.

Santosh, who opened the first special section, made a blazing run to complete the 86.5 km special in a good time of 01 h 10 min to finish the leg 1 of the rally in the lead. Santosh made good of the much improved bike as well his own experience to fight off the competition from TVS Factory debutant, Santolino Lorenzo and Aaron Mar, another international debutant riding for Angata Racing.

The first day’s leg was split into two special stages of 41 km and 46 km respectively, with first special offering a perfect warm up to the riders on hard pack surface and the second special taking the challenge a notch higher with a mix of hard pack and sandy patches along with a fair bit of night riding thrown in the mix to make it more interesting for the riders.

The second leg will task the riders with 496 km run stage comprising of 136 kms of special stages, all in desert riding conditions, from Bikaner to Jaisalmer.

Provisional Results after Leg 1

1. C S Santosh                    Hero MotoSports Team Rally      01h 10m 44s

2. Aaron Mare                   Angata Racing                                    +6m 47s

3. Sanjay Kumar                                Angata Racing                                    +9m 55s

4. Tanveer Abdul Wahid                TV Racing                                             +17m 06s

5. R Nataraj                         TVS Racing                                          +19m 04s

Steady performance by TVS racers on Day 1

The first leg kicked off on March 19, 2018 in the scorching heat of the Thar Desert.  The leg began at 3 P.M. and concluded close to midnight with the teams covering a stretch of 217 kilometers (including selective sections and transport) around the desert terrains of Bikaner.

At the end of leg 1, TVS Racing’s Rajendra RE is leading in the Group B (upto 250cc category) with Imran Pasha following closely at the second position.  In the Group A (upto 450cc category) TVS Racing’s Abdul Wahid Tanveer stands at P4 (overall) with R Nataraj at P5 and Sherco TVS Factory Rally Team’s Lorenzo Santolino at P8.