Desert Storm: Rana, Santosh top opening leg

The first leg of the rally was held around Bikaner in Rajasthan, with the day’s two stages starting in the evening and going well into the night.

The 41km-long Stage 1 was primarily characterised by fast gravel roads, while the second stage featured a sandy terrain.

10-time Raid de Himalaya winner Rana, who drives a factory-built Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara and is ably assisted by co-driver PVS Murthy, topped the Xtreme category by completing the leg in just under 1 hour and 30 minutes.

2015 Desert Storm winner Abhishek Mishra and his navigator Venu Rameshkumar finished second, while Gaurav Chiripal (co-driver Srikanth Gowda) rounded-off the podium spots.

Raj Singh Rathore (co-driver Sagar Wallapa) was clasified fourth overall and the highest among the T2 contestants, while Samrat Yadav (co-driver Syed Najeeb Nizami)  piloted his Maruti Suzuki Gypsy to fifth.

Meanwhile, India’s only Dakar finisher Santosh dominated the proceedings to take a clear lead in the Moto category.

While the Hero rider thrived on the opening day, TVS riders struggled for pace with Abdul Waheed Tanveer best of the manufacturer’s runners in fourth.

R Nataraj trailed his teammate in fifth, but has since retired from the ongoing leg 2 with a gearbox failure.

TVS’ foreign rider Lorenzo Santolini currently stands seventh, while female rally rider-cum-racer Aishwarya Pissay suffered a DNF with an unfortunate headlamp issue.

With TVS out of position on the opening leg, several riders took advantage to propel themselves inside the top-three; Aaron Mave was second fastest in Leg 1, while Sanjay Kumar was not too far off in third.