Desert Storm, Leg 3: Rana retakes Xtreme lead, Santosh holds top spot

Wednesday’s third leg featured a sole stage which stretched for 200 kms, with competitors starting their journey in Jaisalmer in Western Rajasthan.

In the Xtreme category, Rana retook the top spot after overnight leader Sanjay Agarwal (co-driver Shivaprakash E) suffered a broken rear differential and fell to 20th place.

Agarwal’s troubles provided the perfect incentive for Rana, who had himself lost time with a penalty for checking-in too early for Stage 6 on Tuesday.

The Manali-born driver now leads the standings by five minutes from fellow Team Maruti driver Sandeep Sharma (co-driver Karan Arya), with Niju Padia (co-driver Nirav Mehta) completing the top three.

Himanshu Arora and his navigator Chirag Thakur hold the fourth spot, while Harwinder Singh (co-driver Gurkirat Maan) are classified 25 minutes behind in fifth.

Santosh holds lead in Moto

Meanwhile, Hero’s CS Santosh continues to lead the Moto class despite losing nearly 10 minutes to TVS rival R Nataraj.

The two riders are separated by just 42 seconds heading into Thursday’s fourth leg in Rajasthan.

Tanveer Abdul Wahid made it two TVS riders in the top-three, but sits nearly 20 minutes behind the leading duo of Santosh and Nataraj.

Sanjay Kumar and Rajendra R E are classified fourth and fifth respectively after finishing today’s leg within five seconds of each other.