Manvir Baryan and Drew Sturrock put up a dominating performance in the weekend Gomes Zambia International Rally to claim the Africa Rally Championship (ARC) points lead.
The Multiple Racing Team registered a series of blistering stage times to storm into an early lead in Saturday’s opening leg.
The crew stayed out of trouble to maintain their position while many of their rivals ran into problems over the two days.
Baryan was fastest by 5 minutes and 21 seconds to defend his Zambia Rally win. The victory was spiced up with thirteen stage wins of the fifteen stages.
“The event was a very good class. Fantastic organisation and excellent routes. The car is very good, handled beautifully and Manvir drove it very well. It has be a cracking event for us,” said Drew Sturrock.
Baryan and Drew secured maximum points to go top of the ARC leaderboard with 50 points with three events remaining.
Muna Singh Jr. maintained his day one second position to the final stage to become the best placed local driver.
“It was a fantastic race. We didn’t have so many problems other than a brake fail in some stages. We managed to get a second overall and secured maximum points for our championship. It was a brilliant event all together,” said Muna Singh.
Tanzania’s Ahmed Huwel was impressive throughout the weekend. Despite an off in the last stage. The crew managed to seal the podium dash in third position overall.
Former ARC champion Mohammed Essa slid into the fourth position after his young brother Zubair Essa dropped out in the morning stage on Sunday.
Farook Ticklay sealed the top five positions followed by Kyle Latife in sixth position.
Kenya’s Piero Cannobio and Silvia Frigo finished eighth overall.
Jassy Singh, Leroy Gomes, Zubair Essa, Kleevan Gomes among others all retired over mechanical problems.
The next ARC event heads to Uganda on 20-22nd July.