Source: TheHindu.com
KOLKATA (20 Sept 2009):

Gaurav Gill and co-driver Musa Sherif of Team MRF set the fastest time for the third successive day to claim the top spot in the Speed Rally de Kolkata, which concluded with a spectator special stage, at the Kishore Bharati Stadium here on Sunday.

Driving a Mitsubishi Lancer Cedia, Gaurav timed one minute 25 seconds and was two seconds quicker than his challenger Amittrajit Ghosh (co-driver Ashwin Naik) of Red Rooster Racing over two laps of the 1.2-km long circuit. This gave Gaurav the best time in the 2000cc N+ category, and the overall title in the third leg of the Speed-Indian National Rally Championship.

Fastest all the way Gaurav picked up 16 points for being the fastest on all three days of the third leg here and was back among the leaders of the National rally circuit. The 28-year-old Team MRF driver, who has a protest pending against his second place finish in the previous round in Bangalore, will move to the top of the standings unless the protest is upheld.

Amittrajit Ghosh, who also did creditably well in staying a close second on a gruelling terrain that saw five out of the seven Cedias in the fray crashing out, picked up 12 points.

With three more rounds in Nashik, Chikmagalur and Shimla to go, the top two drivers of the country established a healthy lead over the rest of the field.In the other classes, the overnight positions remained almost the same except in the Gypsy Cup where Anil Wadia (co-driver Prajwal Pai) of Team Thunderbolt moved up to second place displacing Bobby Jose (co-driver Bobby Varghese) of Team DDL Sports.

The results (provisional):

Overall:
1. Gaurav Gill & Musa Sherif (Team MRF, Cedia N+) 53m 26s; 2. Amittrajit Ghosh & Ashwin Naik (Red Rooster Racing, Cedia N+) 54:45; 3. Sujay Suresh & Varun Satyanarayana (Maruti Baleno) 57:18.

1600cc:
1. Sujay & Varun 57.18; 2. Rahul Kanthraj & Vivek Bhatt 1:00:25; 3. Ranjith Gopinath & Dileep Ramanujam 1:04:43.

1400cc:
1. Francis K. Jose & Manoj Mohan (DDL Sports) 1:02:14; 2. Saurabh Choudhury & E. Shivaprakash 1:03:01; 3. S. Asgar Ali & Debashish Ghosh 1:08:03.

Gypsy Cup:
1. Khushwant Randhawa & Vinay Sekhar 1:03:51; 2. Anil Wadia & Prajwal Pai (Team Thunderbolt) 1:05:27; 3. Bobby Jose & Bobby Verghese (DDL Sports) 1:07:01.

Rally Star Cup:
1. Karna Kadur & Somonita Ghosh 1:00:37; 2. Phalguna Urs & Anoop Kumar 1:01:07; 3. M.R. Venkatapathy & Santosh Selvaraj 1:02:36.