Gaurav Gill has bagged his third Dakshin Dare title winning the 2019 season. Driving the Super XUV500 for Mahindra Adventure, Gill completed the 2000 kilometres of the cross-country rally with a total time of 04:51:49.001 hours.
Spanning over four days, this years’ Dakshin Dare ran from Bangalore to Hubli. The six-time INRC champion finished top in seven stages out of the nine special stages. Accompanied by his trusted co-driver Musa Sherif, Gill won all the three stages on the first day, clocking a time of 45:45.053 minutes. However, he fell back on the second day, losing both the stages to his teammate Philippos Mathai and his co-driver PVS Murthy.
By the third day, Gill was trailing by 00:47.261 seconds. But after finishing first in the two stages on day three, he was able to grab a lead of 6:42.383 minutes. With that lead, it was near impossible for the competition to overtake Gaurav on the final day. And the WRC rallyist won his third title almost a minute ahead of the closest competitor.
Talking about his win, Gaurav Gill said, “I am excited to win the Dare once again. This is my third Dakshin Dare title and I am very happy with this achievement. The stages were very challenging but I believe we had a very good car at our disposal and our tyres indeed helped us in manoeuvring these treacherous stages. I would like to thank my tuners and mechanics for preparing such a fine car”.
Rounding off the podium were two Team Harjee drivers – Anil Wadia with his co-driver Harvinder Bhola and co-driver Chirag Thakur. Gill’s teammate Matthai eventually dropped to 16th position while Amritraj Gosh (co-driver Ashwin Naik) managed to finish ninth in the final classification.
