As the JK Tyre Himalayan Drive 7 entered its final two stages, Delhi’s Gagan Sethi scripted a gallant fightback to move up to the third position here late on Thursday evening.
The 2019 Hornbill TSD Driver champion Gagan Sethi and co-driver Rajkumar Mundra, who were not in the reckoning after the initial stages, showed great precision and skill to make up for their opening day’s loss and get back into the championship mix.
While there were lot of unfortunate incidents with competitors Pratick Sirkar and co-driver Debashish Ghosh and Ratan Pal along with co-driver Prasenjit Roy dropping out of contention with DNFs, it was two-defending champion Ajgar Ali and his navigator Mohammed Musthafa who held on to their slender lead to keep their dream alive of completing a rare hat-trick in Himalayan Drive.
Jogendra Jaiswal and his co-driver Nagarajan Thangaraj, who started their day in the second position, managed to hold on to that position, even narrowing down the lead and threatening the leaders.
With leg three of India’s only multi-nation TSD (Time, Speed, Distance) from Paro (Bhutan) to Phuentsholing being cancelled due to heavy snowfall, the drivers will head straight to Leg 4 which will be flag-offed from Jaigaon while the final leg will see the competitors traverse from Kalimpong to Siliguri on Saturday, March 2.
Power Drive 