As day 2 of 2019 Desert Storm came to an end, Aabhishek Mishra proved his mettle as he jumped into the lead after finishing the SS4 on Thursday. The defending champion blazed through tough terrains and difficult conditions to finish with a total time of 03:22:46 hours.Â
Meanwhile, overnight leader Sunny Sidhu and co-driver Ashwin Naik faced difficulties with their car in the Rajasthan heat and were moved to the middle of the pack by the end of second leg. Meanwhile Sidhu's teammate and WRC ace Gaurav Gill bagged the second place. Gill and his co-driver Musa Sheriff were trailing in the fourth position after day 1, however, they recorded a remarkable timing of 01:10:11 in SS4 for a cumulative tally of 03:25:46, just three minutes off the leader. Meanwhile, Samrat Yadav and co-driver Kunal Kashyap managed to hold on to the third position on conclusion of second leg.Â
In the Ndure Category, Ankur Chauhan with co-driver Prakash M was in the lead with a cumulative leg penalty of just 13.38 seconds after eight sections. He was followed by Deepak Sachdeva (co-driver Japjyot Singh Dhingra) and Capt Abhilash Singh (co-driver Aashish Agarwal).
The 41km SS1 for Moto and Extreme categories started from Noorsar village in Bikaner district while the 46km SS2 took off from Rajasar village. The Extreme drivers even took part in the night stage, a 41-km stretch starting from Kelan village. The competition will now head to Jaisalmer for the next stages.Â
