Motorsports’ marquee stop-Formula One-still remained a distant dream for India, nonetheless Indians still travelled far and wide-from World Rally Championship to gruelling Dakar in Latin America-but at the domestic level motorsports remained warped in a time lag.
The year 2018 truly belonged to the individual exponents of the art of steering-from Pune’s own WRC trailblazer Sanjay Takale and Gaurav Gill to CS Santosh and KP Aravind-there was though wide gap at the domestic front with infrastructure struggling to match the world standards.
Five years after he became Asia-Pacific Rally Champion, Takale took the plunge in 2018 by debuting at the WRC’s prima donna venue-Neste Rally Finland in Jyväskylä-and became India’s first registered driver at the FIA World Rally Championship.
Driving the Baltic Motorsports Promotion-prepared 2-Wheel drive Ford Fiesta R2, Takale finished 14thin WRC3-a no mean achievement given that even finishing in one piece at the iconic Rally Finland is considered as an achievement.
On the race track though achievements were scattered-Jehan Daruvala without doubt leading the mantle with his exploits in European Formula 3 with Carlin, but otherwise at the domestic level India needed a new face after drivers such as Armaan Ibrahim, Aditya Patel and Karun Chandhok virtually vanished from the scene.
If the youngsters took a backseat too early to chart out an ambitious plan for a franchisee-based motorsports’ league X1, the seasoned nonetheless kept the tricolour flying high in the world of rally.
Whether it was champion driver Gaurav Gill or Sanjay Takale, who preferred to drive in Europe to get used to the conditions prevalent in WRC courses, India’s performance on rally circuit was alive and kicking.
From Baltic region to Finland
Takale chose the tiny nation of Estonia where rallying is a National Sport to prepare for his July WRC debut in Finland. Estonian terrain is geographically similar to Finland-long undulating straights through the pines. He found BMP as an able team that would support his quest with British co-driver Darren Garrod to read out the pace notes through the 23 Special Stages over a total of 317.26-km stretch that is rated among the fastest in the WRC calendar.
“It was an amazing experience and a steep learning curve for me overall. Probably, I could have fared better had I not lost time due to a puncture and twice having to go for repairs to damaged lower arms of my car. However, that was part and parcel of rallying, no complains on that part,” is how Takale reflected.
It all began in Latvia where Takale met Martins Dzenitis, the team principal of BMP and the Latvian immediately struck a chord of friendship with the Pune rally driver.
Having decided to give APRC a miss as Takale’s planned to drive more in Europe after buying R5 spec Mitsubishi Mirage, but when his plans got stranded it was Martins who offered to give him a WRC registered car for his WRC debut.
Things moved in the right direction since then before Finland happened, but one can expect much more from Takale in the new year though nothing has been yet finalised.
APRC’s loss rubs on India
Off the course, the Asia Pacific Rally Championship lost two Indian drivers-Takale and Gill-rendering Rally India a virtual non-starter as no international team travelled to Chikamagalur.
A championship that once was frequented by the Indian drivers lost sheen to such an extent that MRF Tyres decided to pull out its team and instead focus on WRC, but that didn’t go as per the plan. MRF, unfortunately, wasn’t ready to FIA homologated gravel tyres, a requisite for participating in WRC and the hurry make it to WRC cost MRF dearly as they failed to send registration papers in time.
Takale nonetheless kept himself busy with Thailand Rally Championship in the later part of the season ‘to stay in touch with the four-wheel driving’ in a terrain that is more varied across South East Asia as any other.
