Gaurav Gill of Team MRF stole a march over his teammate Chris Atkinson to win the rally of Nouvelle Caledonie by a comfortable margin of four minutes and 52 seconds on Sunday. It was a rare 1-2 for Team MRF in a rally.

And since they are also 1-2 on the leaderboard after the first two events in the Asia Pacific Rally Championship — Atkinson first and Gill second — the team seemed twice as joyful.

When Atkinson ran into trouble in the second stage of the final day, thanks once again to wet conditions in deep water crossings adding to the trickiness of rough and rocky roads in this unique rally, Gill pushed ahead to go into a big lead.

As a racing colleague, Gill stopped his car in a sympathetic gesture on the road between stages to try and help Chris whose car had suffered an electrical outage and stalled. But there was little more he could do as there was a rally to be won and Gill went on to do it with élan.

“I am glad I proved India can also be at par with the best of the world. I am really happy because I have only 25 per cent of the experience that the top guys command.

The conditions are really tough and tricky and Indian tyres (MRF) are great,” said Gill, who dedicated his victory to his 10-day old son Aaryan and his wife who is looking after the baby in Chennai.

Gill, who recently added an 18-year-old left-hand drive Benz to his collection of two BMWs in order to try and pick up more about driving from that side of the car in his new Skoda 2000, said his extra effort to stay extremely competitive may have also paid off.

“This win is very special,” he said of his fourth rally win to add to his Indonesia (2008), Australia (2010) and Hokkaido (2011) triumphs. He missed the 2011 APRC championship top spot by a whisker.

“This one was more special because this is a new car and tyres had to be redeveloped to suit it and I also had to educate myself to use the latest technology available. My navigator Glenn Macneall is a very experienced racer and his guidance as well as MRF team work helped me immensely,” Gill said.

Gill did so well despite having been kept up till 11.30 on Saturday night because the dope testing guys stuck to him like a leeches until he could give them a sample of the required density for the lab.

The rally conditions in this land of mining and hilly terrain in the north of this sparsely populated island were so ‘car breaking’ that only four cars completed the rally.

final standings
1. Gaurav Gill (Team MRF) 2:52:35.9s; 2. Chris Atkinson (Team MRF) 2:57:28.1;
3. Brian Green 3:08:21.6;
4. Emmanuel Guigou 3:15:27.9.

A long search for tricolour!

Gaurav Gill did India proud by winning the rallye de Nouvele Caledonie. The Pacific island of New Caledonia did India even more proud by producing an Indian national flag in time for the presentation ceremony at the podium. And it took the islanders, who are situated 11,092 kilometres away, a whale of a time to get an Indian flag in time.

A small media contingent of four from India informed helpful local racing officials that, among the 10 national flags fluttering behind the podium, conspicuous by its absence on a day of Indian triumph was the Indian national flag. They sprang into action at once after checking with us whether we had an Indian flag.

One of them speed dialed every prominent hotel on the island to check if they had an Indian flag. None of them had one.

Another official sent off two volunteers to check at the bigger yacht clubs if they could help. Same result — none had the Indian flag.

Short of trying ‘Black Forest, a community of expatriates from Pondicherry and Malabar who live on the extreme north of the island and a clear hour’s drive away even on a Sunday, the officials had tried everything.

A smart official desperately speed dialled the Mayor to see if the city of Noumea could help and struck pay dirt.

The Mayor said his city council could because they had the tricolour. The flag was then driven at rally car speeds to the venue - the municipal racecourse in the middle of town.

Another minor problem – media persons had to point out that the saffron goes up and the green stays down.

‘By any chance would you have the national anthem?” asked the intrepid official with the true blue French name of Laubreaux.

“YouTube” was the instant reply and he arranged a download at once through the public address system ‘caller’ at the racecourse and Gill could stand at attention and sync the words to the instrumental version of Jana Gana Mana and India was truly honoured.